The unwanted drama just goes on and on for a major Scottish company facing another attempt to oust its board, writes Ian McConnell.

And the industry body has now called on the UK Government to 'get to grips with the threat'.

It has long been clear US hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein would not be walking away from the UK investment trust sector just because his Saba Capital Management lost every one of its attempts to oust the boards of seven funds early last year.

That string of defeats has not put him off at all as Saba continues to make its presence felt on various fronts.

Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust had by last month seen off two attempts by Saba to oust its board.

Of course, the latest defeat for Saba on January 20 did not change the fact that its stake of “just over” 30% in the trust, as Edinburgh Worldwide chairman Jonathan Simpson-Dent quantified the holding in the run-up to last month’s vote, means it continues to cast a long shadow over the fund.

That said, even with an acute awareness of Mr Weinstein’s persistence when it has come to UK investment trusts, his decision to launch a third bid to oust the board of Edinburgh Worldwide only three weeks after his second attempt was defeated was a real attention-grabber when it was announced on Tuesday.

And Saba is proposing the appointment to Edinburgh Worldwide's board of the very same three individuals, Gabriel Gliksberg, Michael Joseph, and Jassen Trenkow, at the investment trust’s forthcoming annual meeting as it did last month. The US hedge fund said this week that it will propose these appointments as additional resolutions at the annual meeting and vote against the re-election of the existing directors.

Excluding shares held by Saba, investors representing 92.7% of the shares voted rejected the US hedge fund’s proposals at the general meeting of Edinburgh Worldwide requisitioned by Saba and held on January 20.

However, that has clearly not put Mr Weinstein off another attempt.

Taking into account Saba’s shareholding, investors holding 53.2% of the Edinburgh Worldwide shares voted opposed the resolutions put to the January 20 meeting.

And it was this 53.2% figure on which Saba focused in its open letter this week to shareholders of Edinburgh Worldwide, which is managed from the Scottish capital by Baillie Gifford.

This shows the strength of the US player’s position as a result of its stake, with a record turnout of shareholders in the January 20 vote and with 92.7% of non-Saba shareholders rejecting the hedge fund’s resolutions producing overall 53.2%........

© Herald Scotland