Saba continues to cast a very long and broad shadow over the UK investment trust sector. It is far from clear how things will shape up from here. One thing that does seem plain, in a general sense, is that Boaz Weinstein and Saba will not be disappearing back over the horizon just because of another high-profile defeat, writes Ian McConnell.

Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital Management suffered another high-profile defeat this week as other Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust shareholders turned up in numbers to reject its efforts to oust the entire board.

It was the second such attempt by Saba within the space of a year. And the result was the same – defeat for the US hedge fund.

However, Saba continues to cast a very long and broad shadow over the UK investment trust sector.

And, while it was defeated in its latest bid to oust the board of Edinburgh Worldwide, Saba retains a very large stake in this trust.

The investment trust sector has over the decades been no stranger to arbitrageurs and activists.

However, such action, while involving some of the biggest investment trusts and producing major drama on occasion, had tended to be much more sporadic before Saba moved to make its presence in the sector felt in a more spectacular way a little more than a year ago.

And the means of resolution of such past aggressive behaviour by activists were relatively predictable in most, though not all, cases.

Looking at the landscape right now, it is far from clear how things will shape up from here.

One thing that does seem plain, in a general sense, is that Mr Weinstein and Saba will not be disappearing back over the horizon just because of another high-profile defeat.

Saba early last year lost all of its attempts to oust the boards of seven UK investment trusts.

And it has seemed entirely undeterred in the wake of these shareholder votes against what it was trying to do.

Edinburgh Worldwide, which is managed by Baillie Gifford from the Scottish capital and had total assets of around £831.55 million at November 30, was in February 2025 the last of the........

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