Invesco's investment in Zimbabwe-related funds highlights fact investors have no control over where managers put their money.

The millions of loyal investors who own stakes in Neil Woodford's duo of funds, the highly-rated Invesco Income and Invesco High Income, may be surprised to find a punt on the future of Zimbabwe lurking among the out-of-favour British companies that have become his trademark.

Woodford has emerged as one of the biggest investors in Masawara, a fund set up in June "for the  purpose of acquiring interests primarily in Zimbabwe-based companies and projects in sectors such as agriculture, mining, telecommunications and real estate, which the directors believe represent investments that will generate attractive shareholder returns".

Zimbabwe is, of course, more commonly known as a country where human rights are routinely violated; of extreme poverty and chronic food shortages; of forced slum clearances and land grabs; and of a dictatorial president Robert Mugabe's who runs roughshod over opponents.

Ethical specialist Amanda Davidson of financial advisers Baigrie Davies said the Zimbabwe investment had made her firm consider whether to boycott Woodford's funds and, although it decided against that, it "highlights the fact that investors [in funds] have no control over where the manager puts their money unless it is in an ethical fund".

While ethical funds have to spell out their policies, including areas which they will avoid, conventional funds simply have to give a breakdown of the sectors and regions they invest in and disclose their top 10 holdings.

The two Invesco funds own almost 30% of Masawara, worth about £15mn based on the price at which they were listed on AIM last week. But that is negligible given that the two funds combined are worth more than £16bn. Woodford has earned a reputation as one of the UK's most successful investors after more than two decades in which he has delivered table-topping performance, regardless of the economic conditions.

He currently favours tobacco and pharmaceutical giants such as AstraZeneca and British American Tobacco but Citywire, the financial website, says the funds have had other unusual holdings including property in Macau and warehouses in Russia. While they are UK funds, they are permitted to have up to a fifth of their investments outside the country.

Neither Invesco nor Woodford would comment on the investment. But Masawara's own prospectus  underlined that human rights abuses are not the only risk in the country; its prospectus contains 20 pages of risk factors covering everything from government instability though the unreliability of company accounting to the fact that at least half of all Zimbabwean businesses have to be owned by a national.

Africa is becoming a more interesting place for investors with a number of specialist funds being aunched for the area by companies such as Fidelity and Investec, so it is possible that other fund managers will also have exposure to Zimbabwe. Henderson's multi-manager team, for example, has a small stake in a fund called
Imara African Opportunities, which is likely to have holdings there.

"You should think carefully about where your money is invested," said. Davidson. "Even people who do not class themselves as ethical may prefer not to invest in places like Zimbabwe."