Saba Capital loses double vote on Baillie Gifford trust takeovers
Saba Capital has lost two more votes in the US hedge fund’s campaign to take over a variety of UK investment trusts, leaving its campaign looking increasingly unlikely to succeed.
Two trusts run by Baillie Gifford, Keystone Positive Change and Baillie Gifford US Growth, voted today to reject Saba’s proposal to unseat their boards and replace them with Saba-backed members.
Over 60 per cent of Keystone shareholders voted against Saba’s proposals at a general meeting, while 66 per cent voted against the similar Baillie Gifford US Growth resolution.
Excluding Saba’s own votes, 98.5 per cent of votes were cast against the hedge fund in US Growth’s general meeting.
Shareholder turnout was noticeably high, with 78.4 per cent of shareholders voting on the motion, compared to an industry average of around 30 per cent.
The vote came after Saba Capital lost a similar motion against Herald trust last month, where 65 per cent of shareholders voted to kill the activist hedge fund’s proposals.
Four more investment trusts are set to vote on a Saba takeover, with three due to vote later this week.
Saba launched a takeover campaign against the seven trusts in December, accusing them of failing to perform and pushing for votes to “elect new directors with a concrete plan to deliver shareholder value”.
“In the wake of this, we expect that the sentiment will turn from relief to anger at the disruption that this has caused and the considerable sums that have had to be spent to ward off the attack,” said James Carthew, head of investment companies at Quoteddata.
“One positive result may be that investors are better able and more likely to vote at company meetings in future. Real change seems to be happening at some platforms and a change of company law to enforce shareholders’ rights may not be far behind.”