The week’s headlines in the UK Investment Trust world have been dominated by New York activist hedge fund, Saba’s targeting of seven investment trusts worth around GBP4bn, in what its chief executive, Boaz Weinstein claims is a move “to help small UK investors.”
However, one analyst describes the play as: “an egregious and opportunistic attack.” Even the Association of Investment Companies chief, Richard Stone, said shareholders such as Saba could have a disproportionate influence because retail investors tend not to vote.
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Weinstein is proposing that Saba would replace the board directors of the seven target investment trusts. He claims they have together lost 13.4% of their NAV over the past three years. Saba would take over the management of the trusts and change the investment mandates to buying discounted investment trusts.
Britain, ‘the AI superpower’
However, one of the other stories leading the line this week (apart from the imminent collapse of the UK economy) was the UK government’s proposal to make Britain “an AI superpower”, with Prime Minister, Keir Starmer saying in a press conference: “I’m determined the UK becomes the best place to start and scale an AI business that will be the centerpiece of our industrial strategy. There’s never been a better moment for entrepreneurs with big ideas to grow a small company fast.”
Which should be music to the ears of the constituents of the AIC: Technology & Technology Innovation, a small sector of four funds that the AIC reclassified in 2023 to better reflect the nature of the funds’ investment mandates.
Leading the line over the last year is the GBP4.8bn Polar Capital Technology Trust plc [LON:PCT], managed by Ben Rogoff who has been running the fund since 2006. Rogoff joined Polar Capital in 2003 and has 27-years of industry experience. We last visited Polar Capital Technology Trust in November 2022, at a point in the cycle where the tech sector had taken a bit of a post-Covid pummelling.
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