Saba Capital opposes Baillie Gifford trusts merger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nBoth the trust\u2019s NAV and share price returns, which are down 30.6% and 35.6% over the past five years, have lagged the S&P Global SmallCap Price Index, which was up 33.6% as of 26 November.<\/p>\n
Over one year, the trust\u2019s share price is up 14.9%, ahead of the benchmark\u2019s 2.7%.<\/p>\n
Responding to the requisition notice, Jonathan Simpson-Dent, chair of Edinburgh Worldwide, called the move a \u201cpower grab\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaba\u2019s letter does not acknowledge the significant progress Edinburgh Worldwide has achieved since this board reset the company on a path for growth a year ago,\u201d he said. \u201cSince then, the NAV total return has been 13.1%, well ahead of the S&P Global Small Cap Index, the company\u2019s benchmark index.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, the company\u2019s proactive steps over the last year have supported a tightly managed discount, currently 5.4%, significantly narrower than the Global Smaller Companies peer group weighted average discount of 11%.<\/p>\n
\u201cShareholders should not be fooled by this US hedge fund\u2019s claims. This board remains fully committed to serving the best interests of all shareholders. Saba\u2019s proposal would result in a board answerable to only one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board nominations<\/p>\n
In the hedge fund\u2019s letter, Saba also outlined the three candidates they have nominated for the board. <\/p>\n
They include Gabi Gliksberg, founder & managing partner of ATG Capital Management, Michael Joseph, portfolio manager & deputy CIO at Stansberry Asset Management, and Jassen Trenkow, a former finance and banking executive with who has held senior positions at Barclays and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo source these nominees, we intentionally avoided the traditional small UK network of repeat non-executive directors who often sit together on multiple trust boards,\u201d Saba said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis entrenched system of familiarity and industry \u2018cosiness\u2019 often weakens accountability and contributes to persistent underperformance, double-digit discounts and decisions that protect the interests of managers rather than shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hedge fund said decisions regarding the trust\u2019s future would be made solely by the new, independent directors.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a shareholder, however, we would encourage the new directors to evaluate all available options to improve share price performance and maximise value, just as we have successfully encouraged other trusts\u2019 boards to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saba expects the meeting to be scheduled by early 2026.<\/p>\n
See also: Nick Train\u2019s Finsbury trust troubles continue<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After announcing its intention in an open letter last week, Saba Capital has now officially requisitioned the Edinburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,191018,191019,4884,69901,187670,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-611656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-worldwide","11":"tag-edinburgh-worldwide-investment-trust","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-investment-trusts","14":"tag-saba-capital","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115661368587994063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}