Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, a Baillie Gifford-run technology-focused fund, is calling on shareholders to throw out a plan by Boaz Weinstein’s activist investment fund Saba Capital to overhaul its board of directors.
The EWIT board said on Wednesday it would “strongly urge” shareholders to reject a plan by the U.S. hedge fund — which holds a 30% stake in the trust — to remove the incumbent board and appoint three directors in their place.
In an update on Wednesday, the trust’s chair, Jonathan Simpson-Dent, said Saba was “an aggressive U.S. hedge fund” which wants to “seize control for its own commercial advantage, at the expense of other shareholders.”
Simpson-Dent said the trust has made “strong progress” over the past 12 months.
Saba Capital said the sweeping board-level changes were needed to reverse what it sees as “unprecedented value destruction” at the trust over the past five years. In a recent letter to shareholders, the firm said its three proposed directors — Gabi Gliksberg, Michael Joseph and Jassen Trenkow — could “deliver the performance our shareholders rightfully expect.”
As the largest shareholder, Saba has secured a General Meeting — expected to take place early next year — where it will ask shareholders to vote on its resolutions for board replacements.
Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust.
“We urge Saba to explain to EWIT shareholders its intentions beyond replacing the Board, to allow shareholders to make an informed choice in January rather than face considerable uncertainty should it succeed,” Simpson-Dent said.
He highlighted the trust’s NAV total return of 16.2%, outperforming the 6% achieved by its benchmark, the S&P Global Small Cap Index. He also said a share buyback programme had contributed to an average discount of 5.3% over the past 12 months, “significantly narrower” than its peer group average of 17.9%.
Saba’s plan follows a previous attempt to replace the EWIT board in February, which investors rejected. Since then, Weinstein’s firm has increased its stake to 30%, allowing it to block a proposed merger between EWIT and another Baillie Gifford fund, the US Growth Trust, earlier this month.
‘A storm brewing’
Relations between the two camps have become increasingly acrimonious amid a protracted wrangle over EWIT’s discount. Weinstein declared he had “no confidence” that the incumbents could improve the outlook and protect shareholder capital.
“Many shareholders gave the Board the benefit of the doubt, enabling the directors to remain,” Saba Capital said. “Simply put, the Board requested more time to make improvements but failed to generate adequate performance.”
The Saba founder has sharpened his focus on closed-end funds and investment trusts on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years, identifying investment opportunities arising from persistent valuation discounts. At the Sohn London investment conference last month, the New York-based fund manager said there was “a storm brewing” in the U.K. investment trust space.
EWIT’s portfolio — which is sized at around $847 million — comprises a global mix of smaller and emerging public and private companies focused on disruptive tech innovation.
Its largest position is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, accounting for almost 16% of its total assets.
That position has become a major flashpoint in the dispute.
In a post on X on Tuesday night, Weinstein accused Ballie Gifford of selling one-third of SpaceX shares in both the EWIT and U.S. Growth trusts at “a level massively lower” than the reported $1.5 trillion valuation that the rocket maker could reach in a future IPO. He earlier posted that Saba had received calls from shareholders “livid” at the sale.
EWIT said on Wednesday that it offers investors a “unique and distinctive portfolio of disruptive and transformative companies positioned for long-term growth,” which includes exposure to SpaceX.
