A Baillie Gifford & Co. trust that placed an early bet on SpaceX recommended a proposal backed by activist investor Boaz Weinstein after losing a key shareholder vote.
Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust is backing tender offers supported by Weinstein’s Saba Capital Management that will give shareholders the chance to exit at net asset value minus costs in the coming weeks or after a potential SpaceX listing, the London-listed trust said in a statement Friday.
The Edinburgh Worldwide board’s own proposal, which didn’t garner enough support in a ballot this week, would have allowed shareholders to receive about 85% of their holdings in cash. The balance — effectively the portion of the fund’s holdings invested in SpaceX — would be deferred until “a future liquidity event” at Elon Musk’s company.
The result is the biggest win yet for Weinstein, a veteran derivatives trader, who began waging a high-profile battle to take control of seven UK trusts trading at a discount in December 2024. While those attempts failed, some of the targeted trusts have gone on to make the structural changes that Saba sought anyway.
In the case of Edinburgh Worldwide, 36.8% of the issued share capital — consisting almost entirely of holdings from Saba and two other institutions — voted against the board’s tender offer, according to the statement. The board said 53.8% of the total votes cast opposed its proposal.
The shareholders will vote on April 30 on whether to replace the trust’s board with candidates proposed by Saba. If the hedge fund firm wins, it’s widely expected that Saba will become the vehicle’s manager.
“This is a very disappointing outcome,” Edinburgh Worldwide Chairman Jonathan Simpson-Dent said in the statement.
“There remains a high likelihood of Saba succeeding in appointing its proposed new board,” he added. “Faced with this reality, the board’s priority is to ensure shareholders can still exercise their right to a meaningful choice.”
A representative for Saba had no immediate comment.
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