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.”
