Bye bye Gabelli Value Plus – at the general meeting of shareholders held today (separate from the AGM), shareholders voted against the continuation of the company with 2,231,369 shares voted for continuation and 48,599,027 shares voted against continuation. Additionally, shareholders approved, by 50,411,092 to 419,304 the liquidation of the company. In both cases, 26,889,101 votes were withheld – these are the shares that had blocked the liquidation in the past.
The trust’s shares were suspended from trading today and cancellation of trading should take effect tomorrow morning at 8:00am.
The liquidator’s costs and other expenses related to winding up the company are estimated at £325,000. However, on top of this the manager will get about £1.7m – representing the fees that it would have earned between now and 29 July 2022. The main reason for this was that the manager’s contract required 24 months’ notice. [This is way too long and the hefty bite taken out of shareholders’ funds to pay off the manager should act as a warning to others. While long notice periods are acceptable in the immediate period after a fund is launched, we think that established funds should be able to work with six months’ to a year’s notice.]
GVP : Bye bye Gabelli Value Plus