Patrick Hosking, Financial Editor, The Times, 3 February 2025:
A London-listed investment company used by investors to back potential US tech winners has emphatically seen off a threat by the New York activist hedge fund group Saba Capital.
The £750 million Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust said shareholders had voted by 65.6 per cent to 34.4 per cent to reject Saba’s proposals to sack the board, take over the running of the trust and give investors an option to cash out at close to net asset value.
Excluding the votes of Saba itself, 98.5 per cent of shares that were voted were against Saba..
The smaller Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust, which is valued at about £147 million, also saw off Saba when its shareholders voted by 60.5 per cent to 39.5 per cent to reject the Saba proposals.
Excluding Saba’s votes, less than 1 per cent of votes cast were in favour of the activist’s resolutions..
The battles were characterised by unusually high levels of voting: 78 per cent of USA shareholders and 72 per cent of Keystone shareholders voted their shares. Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh fund management house that manages both trusts, hailed the results as “a display of shareholder democracy”.
James Carthew, of the equities research house QuotedData, said he expected the focus to now harden further against Saba because of the heavy costs imposed on trusts defending themselves: “We expect that 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.”
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