Herald Investment Trust (HRI) has announced that shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the trust’s continuation at its AGM today. Resolution 11, the continuation vote, was passed with a significant majority, further underlining support for the board and its strategy.
Crucially, if votes believed by the board to have been cast by or on behalf of Saba Capital are excluded, more than 99.9% of the remaining votes were in favour of continuation. This marks another clear rejection of Saba’s activist campaign, following the failure of its attempt to unseat the entire independent board and replace it with its own nominees at the requisitioned general meeting on 22 January 2025 (click here to see our coverage of that).
Shareholder engagement remained strong, with overall turnout at 69.1%. Notably, 65% of non-Saba shareholders participated in the continuation vote – considered a high level for such resolutions in both Herald’s history and the wider investment trust sector.
Andrew Joy, Chairman of Herald, commented: “I am pleased that shareholders have again made clear that they wish Herald to continue in its current format. Only 0.05% of votes were cast with Saba on the continuation vote. We are grateful to all the shareholders who made their views known. With the recent volatility in public markets and in particular tech stocks, the Manager is starting to see some real opportunities for a specialist active manager like Herald.”
[QD comment MR: We are pleased to see shareholders, other than Saba Capital, have voted resoundingly for Herald’s continuation today and that there was a strong turnout.
We have long said that Saba’s attack on Herald did not make sense – particularly given its long-term track record and the fact that it is a large fund with a long tail of small illiquid positions – and so it is good to see Herald benefiting from a level of support from non-Saba shareholders that is comparable to when Saba’s proposals were voted down in January (just 0.05% of non-Saba shareholders voted against continuation today, which is even lower than the 0.15% of non-Saba shareholders voted for the hedge fund’s proposals at the requisitioned EGM).]
