Edinburgh Worldwide offers exit to end Saba feud

The SpaceX logo at the Mobile World Congress 2026 in Barcelona. Photo: Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images).

Edinburgh Worldwide Ord (LSE:EWI) has proposed to let investors tender up to 100% of their shares while retaining some exposure to future gains from unlisted holding SpaceX, as it seeks to end its lengthy battle with US activist Saba Capital. 

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The board of the Baillie-Gifford managed trust said it had “exhausted every reasonable and equitable solution with Saba Capital” and wanted to make sure shareholders, who have twice rejected Saba’s proposals to change its directors, had a “clean, deliverable and fair exit option to avoid ending up in a Saba-controlled vehicle”.  

The board also said it wanted to avoid an option that would force shareholders to either give up exposure to SpaceX, the trust’s most prominent holding, or stay in a fund run by Saba. 

As such those who do tender their shares will receive 85% cash at close to net asset value (NAV), funded from the disposal of the fund’s liquid assets. Approximately 15% “deferred cash” is then due based on the realised value of SpaceX, once a sale is made.  

The board expects that such a “crystallisation event” would be possible within the next 12 months – something that could well relate to a mooted initial public offering (IPO) for the company. 

Saba, which has a roughly 30% stake in EWI, has twice sought to overthrow the board and recently proposed again to sack the current board last month, while also offering a cash exit at 99% of NAV if investors backed the change. 

It should be noted that neither tender offer would look too attractive at the current moment, with the trust’s shares having traded on a premium in recent days. 

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The activist, which recently launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) focused on the trust sector, has already rejected tender offer proposals from Herald Ord (LSE:HRI) and Impax Environmental Markets Ord (LSE:IEM), suggesting that it could do so here too. 

With IPO talk in the air and plenty of upward revaluations already, SpaceX is seen as the jewel in EWI’s crown. It made up 16.6% on 6 March, a position similar to chunky weightings in the likes of Scottish Mortgage Ord (LSE:SMT). 

Calls for measures to ‘protect retail shareholders’

As reported last month, investment trust trade body the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has written to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the government calling for measures to “protect retail shareholders’ interests” against activists after Saba embarked on a third attack against EWI.  

While the letter itself has not been publicly distributed, AIC chief executive Richard Stone suggested that rules should be changed, for example, to set “a limit to the number of times a meeting can be requisitioned by the same shareholder making similar proposals”. 

The AIC today reiterated its campaign.

Stone said: “The FCA needs to take immediate action on the listing rules to protect the long-term interests of shareholders.

“The current rules are not fit for purpose because they allow a minority shareholder to repeatedly attack an investment trust. Unless the FCA steps up, this could happen again and again and we could see more UK-listed companies disappear.”