BY JAMIE COLVIN, Citywire Wealth Manager, 20 Mar 2023:
Analysts have said that Amar Bhidé, the director at the centre of a row over Scottish Mortgage Trust (SMT), is still likely to exit soon despite the board trying to reassure the market late on Friday that he had not been pushed out.
Bhidé’s explosive comments to the media earlier on Friday highlighted concerns about governance at £9.3bn Scottish Mortgage and its exposure to private companies.
Stifel analyst Iain Scouller said Bhidé, who told the Financial Times he had been removed on Thursday after disagreeing with chair Fiona McBain over new appointments and the risks presented by the trust’s £3.8bn investments in unquoted companies, would likely depart in due course.
Bhidé, a business academic who has been on the board since 2020, told the FT he ‘could not go quietly’. He expressed concern over the Baillie Gifford-run global trust’s recent poor performance, wide share price discount and the lack of investment management experience on the board, criticisms which QuotedData’s James Carthew agreed with today.
Scottish Mortgage then made an extraordinary announcement shortly before the market closed on Friday, stating that ‘at present, Professor A Bhidé remains a director of the [trust] and has not resigned or been removed’.
‘Whilst a board director cannot just resign by making comments in the press, we think a departure is likely to be announced in due course, once the formal resignation process has been completed,’ Scouller said.
He added that given the complexities of investment in private companies, it would help if Scottish Mortgage appointed a specific manager to deal with that segment of the portfolio.
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