Investors in Neil Woodford's defunct flagship Equity Income fund have received their first compensation payouts, nearly five years after the former blockbuster product collapsed.

Around 300,000 investors were locked in the £3.5bn fund when it was suspended in June 2019, after Woodford's increasingly risky bets turned sour and outflows sparked a liquidity crunch. Link Fund Solutions, which administered the fund, decided to wind it down completely four months later.