Saba Capital Seizes Control of Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust After Board Battle

Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital has won a decisive victory in its campaign to overhaul the leadership of the Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust (EWIT). Shareholders voted on Thursday to remove Chair Jonathan Simpson-Dent and five other board members, replacing them with three nominees backed by the activist hedge fund. The conflict centered on EWIT's management of its largest holding, SpaceX, which comprises approximately 20% of the portfolio. While the trust achieved a 947% return on its SpaceX investment since 2018, Weinstein criticized the board for selling a portion of the stake last year and for allowing an unprecedented discount to the fund's net asset value (NAV). Upon taking control, Saba plans to pivot the fund's strategy away from its current focus on cutting-edge public and private technology companies. The new mandate will shift toward a portfolio primarily composed of UK-listed investment trusts with a global remit. To address the valuation gap, Saba intends to launch an active share buyback program targeting a single-digit discount to NAV. The shift in control reflects a broader change in the trust's ownership structure. Retail and private wealth investors have been largely replaced by U.S. institutional funds, which now represent 40% of the share base and provided the critical votes needed to oust the previous board. The ousted chairman warned that the result serves as a wake-up call for the UK investment trust sector and its regulators.