Baillie Gifford US Growth says: “The board considers these proposals to be fundamentally without merit, and in contravention of shareholder interests as a whole. A further announcement will be made in due course by the company accordingly, relating to the posting of a notice of a general meeting and an accompanying circular in which the board will set out its response in full.”

CQS City Natural Resources says: “The board considers these proposals are without merit and remains fully committed to act in the best interests of all shareholders. The directors advise shareholders to take no action at this time and a further announcement by the company will follow in due course.”

European Smaller Companies Trust says: “The board is committed to acting in the best interests of all shareholders and is carefully evaluating the requisition. The board firmly believes in the strength of the company’s existing strategy and governance and will continue to focus on delivering positive total shareholder returns for its investors.”

Edinburgh Worldwide says: “The board has undertaken a thorough review of its strategy, performance and processes in conjunction with the manager and independent advisers and published a circular to shareholders setting out measures with a view to setting Edinburgh Worldwide on a path to renewed growth, with a general meeting this afternoon , where all resolutions were passed.

The board retains a strong conviction in Edinburgh Worldwide’s vision and strategy: To identify and access potential outsized returns from a carefully selected and managed portfolio of ground-breaking businesses aiming to transform end markets; a global and broad sectoral reach with a mandate to deploy a quarter of the Trust’s capital into exciting private companies. However, to deliver on this, we have worked with manager Baillie Gifford to bring forward changes to the way the Trust is managed and its investment parameters, as well as a potential distribution of up to £130m to shareholders.

These changes included:

• Enhancing the team with Luke Ward and Svetlana Viteva becoming co-managers alongside Douglas Brodie, while improving structure, challenge and support around them;
• Rebalancing the portfolio with increased focus from fewer holdings and a better balance between sectors and financial maturity profile to improve resilience;
• Broadening our field of play for game-changing businesses by increasing our upper market capitalisation threshold from USD 5bn to 25bn;
• Tightening execution through improved decision making processes and discipline to adjust more rapidly to changes in market dynamics.

The board further notes that the discount has narrowed significantly this year and even further since the announcement on November 20 to the point that the share price has recently been trading close to NAV.” [This is the killer line here – investors seem to want the trust as is, or at least as it is intended to be. Shareholders approved the changes to the investment policy by 99.4% : 0.6% yesterday. That is a pretty convincing vote of confidence in the trust.]

Henderson Opportunities says: “The board does not believe these resolutions are in the best interests of shareholders and will be advising shareholders to vote against them. Given the company’s performance and in light of the forthcoming continuation vote, the board confirms that it had already instructed advisers to commence work on putting forward a scheme of reconstruction to give all shareholders choice between ongoing investment and a full cash exit. The board intends to continue with these plans and expects to be in a position to announce the detail in the short term.” [This is new news and will probably be welcome to most shareholders. It clearly demonstrates that the board was already acting in shareholders’ best interests.]

Keystone Positive Change says: “The board reiterates its recommendation that shareholders vote in favour of the scheme [choice of cash or rollover into Baillie Gifford’s open-ended Positive Change fund] which it believes is in the best interest of shareholders as a whole.”

[James Carthew: Saba’s attack on the UK investment companies industry is entirely self-serving. It aims to seize control of these funds to impose its own agenda, book a short-term profit on its investment and then – we suspect – extract management fees from a strategy that investors have shown no appetite for.]

USA / CYN / ESCT / EWI / HOT / KPC : Trusts acknowledge Saba requisitions