By Emma Wallis, News editor, Trustnet, 3 February 2025:
The boards of Baillie Gifford US Growth and Keystone Positive Change achieved decisive victories today as Saba Capital Management’s proposals to unseat them were defeated.
The majority of Baillie Gifford US Growth trust’s shareholders made their voices heard, with votes cast representing 78.4% of total voting rights. Excluding Saba’s votes, 98.5% of the votes cast for US Growth and almost 99% for Keystone were against Saba’s resolutions.
Tom Burnet, chair of Baillie Gifford US Growth, said: “Faced with the threat to their investment posed by Saba’s self-serving and destructive proposals, shareholders have mobilised and acted decisively to protect their investment. The result is unambiguous and conclusive.”..
James Carthew, head of investment companies at QuotedData, said Herald’s emphatic rejection of Saba’s proposals last month gives him hope that Saba will lose all of these votes.
“One positive result may be that investors are better able and more likely to vote at company meetings in future,” he said. “Real change seems to be happening at some platforms and a change of company law to enforce shareholders’ rights may not be far behind.”
Keystone Positive Change was the most bizarre of Saba’s targets, he continued: “Why would an activist claiming to be acting in investors’ best interests seek to block a cash exit? The optics were dreadful and made us question from the start whether Saba really knew what it was doing.”
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