Mark and Linda O’Hare, the couple who made £2bn selling their Preqin data firm to BlackRock two years ago, are backing HgCapital Trust (HGT) to recover following last week’s share price slide. Valhalla Ventures, the holding company that owned Preqin and sold it for £2.5bn cash to BlackRock in 2024, yesterday disclosed a 3.3% stake […]

Smithson (SSON) shares have been suspended after more than 99% of shareholder votes yesterday approved the liquidation of the £1.5bn investment trust ahead of its conversion to the open-ended Smithson Equity Fund. Turnout was low, however, with just 26.9% of shares in the global small-cap portfolio voted. This was the first of two general meetings […]

Digital 9 Infrastructure (DGI9) shares have tumbled to an all-time low after the two-year wind-down of the investment company received another setback with news that a previous £213m stake in UK broadcasting platform Arqiva was likely to be written off as part of its forthcoming 31 December valuation. Shares in the former Triple Point managed […]

International Biotechnology Trust (IBT), the top performer in its sector over 10 years, has had to correct net asset value (NAV) statements published last month after an administrative error meant the 15.6p dividend declared in December was not deducted from the NAV. As a result 15 “cum income” NAVs issued in January have been revised. […]

Saba Capital has vowed to continue its war of attrition against Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) by re-submitting resolutions to appoint the same three nominees for the investment trust’s board that shareholders rejected just three weeks ago. In the latest open letter to EWI shareholders, Saba, holder of a dominant 30% stake in the global companies smaller companies […]

Baker Steel Resources Trust (BSRT) extended its impressive New Year rally today after the £115m investment company launched its first share buyback programme in 11 years and flagged up potential further gains in its biggest investment, the unquoted Australian miner Futura Resources. Fund manager Trevor Steel raised the prospect of Futura, in which more than […]

US activist hedge fund Saba Capital has hired corporate broker Sir James Waterlow, former partner at Singer Capital Markets, to take up a new role of UK managing director. In the new position, Waterlow will work alongside Saba portfolio manager Paul Kazarian who has spearheaded the New York firm’s investments in UK investment companies. The […]

State Street has listed an active global smaller companies exchange-traded fund (ETF) in London as the Boston-base US banking and asset management group steps up expansion in Europe. The State Street World Small Cap Enhanced Active Equity UCITS ETF (SWSC) is one of three dollar-denominated active ETFs launched by its investment management business in Dublin […]

Palace Capital (PCA), the £44m UK REIT that Lakestreet Capital activists Christian Kappelhoff-Wulff and Valentin Pierburg took over last month, has sold two of its five remaining properties in Halifax and Newcastle. As its three-and-a-half-year wind-down nears an end, the company has sold a property at Broad Street Plaza, Halifax for £9.9m, 8.7% above the […]

Invesco Bond Income Plus (BIPS), the largest and one of the more cautious funds in the Loan & Bonds sector, is issuing a new tranche of its 7%-yielding shares, but income investors who want to take advantage must move quickly as the offer ends at 2pm on Thursday. The £423m investment company’s share issue kick […]

Japan’s stock market has jumped to a record high after prime minister Sanae Takaichi secured a landslide win in the snap election she called after being elected the country’s first female leader. The Nikkei 224 index rallied 3.9% to 56,364 after her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 352 seats with coalition partner Japan Innovation Party […]

NatWest (NWG) bank has made a big expansion in UK wealth management by snapping up Evelyn Partners for £2.7bn. Confirming weekend reports that NatWest was close to a deal with Evelyn’s private equity owners Permira and Warburg Pincus, the bank this morning confirmed its plan to create the UK’s leading private banking and wealth management […]

Saba Capital disclosed a 5% stake in HarbourVest Global Private Equity (HVPE) last week, joining fellow activist Asset Value Investors (AVI) which holds 3.3% of the £2.3bn listed fund and which last month called on it to consider a wind-up or sale to solve its wide discount. Saba’s position is largely held through swap derivatives. […]

BlackRock Energy and Resources Income (BERI) is in strong shape ahead of next month’s continuation vote after notching up a third consecutive year of outperformance.  Annual results for the year to 30 November confirm a total 28.8% return for shareholders underpinned by an underlying 23.5% return from the portfolio of mining, traditional oil and gas […]

Baker Steel Resources Trust (BSRT) has seen its discount widen to 33% as its shares lag a portfolio surging in the commodity boom and benefiting from last month’s rally in Tungsten West. The £102m investment company managed by Trevor Steel of Baker Steel Capital Managers saw net asset value (NAV) jump 11.9% to £162m last […]

Investment Specialist Hamish Maxwell reflects on the ‘Golden Age of Change’ driven by AI, highlights strategic portfolio exposure in transformational growth areas, and reviews recent trades focused on emerging themes such as electrification. Capital at risk.

HgCapital Trust (HGT) is the centre of attention with a flurry of news following a 25% share price slump over the threat to its private software companies from low-cost artificial intelligence rivals. In a bid to reassure shareholders, the board of the now £1.7bn investment trust, which invests in the private equity funds of manager […]

TR Property (TRY) has appointed Peel Hunt as its joint corporate broker with Panmure Liberum following the decision of its former joint broker Stifel Nicolaus Europe to close its UK equities trading business. Seven investment companies have appointed Canaccord Genuity where some of the Stifel team have joined. JPMorgan Global Core Real Assets (JARA) has […]

Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) has pared some of this week’s losses after fund manager Nick Train argued the market’s “panic” over Anthropic’s threat to his key data and software holdings was mis-placed. Despite the big falls in his long-standing investments in London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Sage, RELX, and newer holdings in Autotrader, Experian, […]

Long-term business software investor Hg has commented on the selloff in tech stocks this week that has crushed shares in HgCapital Trust (HGT), which invests in Hg’s private equity funds. Over two decades Hg has built up $185bn (£136bn) of investments in 60 privately owned software providers. Although these are not directly affected by the […]

Manchester & London (MNL) technology fund manager Mark Sheppard has slashed his position in Microsoft from 21.8% to 4.8% as software stocks reel in response to Anthropic’s launch of new automated plugins to its chatbot Claude. Commenting on MNL’s three-month performance on LinkedIn, Sheppard said: “We have underperformed the Nasdaq 100. We are disappointed. We […]

Dutch investment giant Robeco has continued its rapid roll-out of actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with new corporate bond launches. The Robeco Global Dynamic High Yield UCITS ETF (RHYG), the Robeco Europe Dynamic High Yield UCITS ETF (RHYE), the Robeco 3D EUR Enhanced Index Credits UCITS ETF (3DCE) and the Robeco 3D Global Enhanced Index […]

BlackRock American Income’s (BRAI) new systematic stock-picking approach has gone down well with investors after a positive re-rating of the investment trust’s shares. Annual results show the £134m closed-end fund made a 22% underlying investment return from 17 April, when the data-crunching quantitative process was applied, up to the financial year-end of 31 October. Shareholders […]

Finsbury Growth & Income (FGT) shares slumped over 6% yesterday after a product launch by AI provider Anthropic caused a sell-off in its top four holdings: Sage, Experian, London Stock Exchange Group and RELX. Anthropic, the $183bn developer of the Claude chatbot backed by Scottish Mortgage (SMT) and other Baillie Gifford trusts, said its new […]

Grainger (GRI), the £1.4bn UK residential real estate investment trust, says its latest build-to-rent scheme in London, Seraphina, has been fully let in less than four months. A “strong” trading statement for today’s annual general meeting in Newcastle covering the four months to 31 January shows 3.1% rental growth and 96% occupancy in line with […]

Invesco has brought the first of its US ‘Income Advantage’ range to Europe with the launch of an active exchange-traded fund focused on Nasdaq 100 technology stocks. The Invesco Nasdaq-100 Income Advantage UCITS ETF (QQIA) offers 70%-85% passive exposure to the companies on the tech index such as Nivida, Apple and Microsoft, while actively using […]

Saba could receive a taste of its own medicine after GAMCO Investors, a rival US investment group, launched a bid to get one of its directors on the boards of two of the activist’s funds. GAMCO, a Connecticut-based investment group trading as Gabelli, said it and some of its affiliates intended to nominate David Schachter […]

Herald (HRI) has cancelled its 100% tender offer and tomorrow’s meeting to approve it after activist hedge fund Saba voted its near 31% stake against the resolution. The two sides are in talks to find a solution. The special resolution required 75% of votes in favour to pass, meaning Saba has blocked the transaction for […]

Canaccord Genuity, the Canadian investment banking and wealth management group, has re-entered the UK investment company broking sector after hiring a team from Stifel. Phil Hopkins, managing director of investment fund sales; Scott Anderson, sales director; and Edward Gibson-Watt, managing director of corporate broking, joined Canaccord last month, according to their LinkedIn profiles.  Iain Scouller, […]