Saba Capital, led by Boaz Weinstein, has initiated a third attempt to replace the entire board of the Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, managed by Baillie Gifford. This renewed push comes after two previous unsuccessful attempts to gain control of the trust's board. Saba, which owns approximately 30 percent of the trust's shares, has expressed profound disappointment with the investment trust's share price performance and persistent discount to net asset value (NAV), which recently hit lows of 9.3 percent and currently sits around 5 percent.
Saba's latest action, announced in November 2025, involves calling for a general meeting to remove the current board and appoint new, independent directors. This follows a previous attempt earlier in 2025 where Saba targeted seven Baillie Gifford trusts. Boaz Weinstein accused the board of inertia and failing to implement necessary strategic changes, contrasting their inaction with decisive steps taken by other UK investment trusts to narrow discounts and increase share prices. The board, chaired by Jonathan Simpson-Dent, has expressed disappointment, stating they are open to discussing board composition but reject the wholesale replacement of the board.
The conflict escalated further in February 2026, when Saba submitted new proposals for the trust's next general meeting, just weeks after shareholders rejected their second attempt. Saba proposed voting against the re-election of the current board and appointing Gabriel Gliksberg, Jassen Trenkow, and Michael Joseph as new directors. The Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust's spokesperson has accused Saba of repeating misleading statements and conducting an aggressive campaign, highlighting that 93 percent of non-Saba shareholders rejected Saba's previous proposals. Saba, as the largest shareholder, maintains that shareholders deserve better than the status quo, citing negative returns over the last five years and criticizing the board's governance and oversight of Baillie Gifford. Saba also criticized the trust's sale of SpaceX shares at a price significantly lower than SpaceX's reported $1.5 trillion IPO valuation in December 2025, an argument made in opposition to a proposed merger with Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust Plc.
