RCS - Edinburgh Worldwide - Results analysis from Kepler Trust Intelligence

Edinburgh Worldwide Investment TrustAnnouncement

30/12/2025 10:45

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RNS Number : 1471N  Edinburgh Worldwide Inv Trust PLC  30 December 2025

Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI)

30/12/2025

Flash update from Kepler Trust Intelligence

Saba has requisitioned a general meeting at Edinburgh Worldwide to vote on
appointing their own directors to the board.

Saba has not outlined the intentions of those directors, but there is
speculation it wishes to run its own investment trust. Control of the board
would give Saba the ability to hand itself the management contract. Saba
claims the board members it proposes are independent.

EWI's board noted in its response that it has separately been negotiating the
terms of a merger with Baillie Gifford USA Growth, which Saba has indicated it
will not support.

Saba lost a vote last year on similar proposals by 63.8% to 36.2%, with 98.4%
of the shares not held by Saba voting against the activist. Saba owns c. 30%
of the shares, as of 27/11/2025, more than the c. 25% it voted last time,
making it more important for shareholders to vote.

Shareholder have to vote by 12 noon on 17/01/2026, but some platforms may have
deadlines as early as 12/01/2026. The general meeting will be held on
20/01/2026.

Kepler View

Saba give some specific criticisms of Edinburgh Worldwide's (EWI) board based
around performance, but we don't think they are actually relevant or worth
responding to in depth as they are clearly an afterthought and have been
prepared with no care or attention. Their criticism on performance is based on
a comparison to the FTSE All Share, which they describe as "the trust's own
self-selected benchmark". The trust's own self-selected benchmark is the
S&P Global Small Cap Index. EWI has delivered a NAV total return of 20.9%
in 2025, well ahead of this benchmark's return of 10.7% (to 22/12/2025). EWI's
shares have also outperformed, delivering a 12.5% total return, with the
discount averaging a modest 5.8% over the year.

We suggest that Saba's approach to EWI has nothing to do with performance but
is based purely on their intention to launch an investment trust or ETF which
will roll up investment trusts on a discount, which is definitely not
something its fellow shareholders wanted when they bought EWI shares. They
have been offered two opportunities to exit their investment close to NAV, via
a tender and via a proposed merger with Baillie Gifford USA Growth, which
would include a cash exit option. Clearly they have other plans.

Were Saba to win control of the board, they would be handed carte blanche to
do what they will with the £864m of total assets. In the absence of any
information to the contrary, we have to assume the mandate would completely
change from investing in global smaller companies to buying discounted
investment trusts to wind them down, perhaps benchmarked to the MSCI Latin
America Equal Weight Index.

In short, we view the approach as cynical, and by timing their approach around
the Christmas holidays, just as they did last year, we suspect Saba is trying
to shorten the amount of time the board has to respond and for shareholders to
vote, making it as difficult as possible for them to do so, which is
disappointing given their claim to be acting in the interests of all
shareholders.

We think shareholders should vote against Saba's proposals, and access
www.TrustEWIT.com for information on how to do so. Click below to read the
list of reasons to vote against:

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL REPORT
(https://www.trustintelligence.co.uk/investor/articles/news-investor-flash-update-edinburgh-worldwide-retail-dec-2025?utm_source=RNS&utm_medium=news)

Visit Kepler Trust Intelligence
(http://www.trustintelligence.co.uk/investor?utm_source=RNS&utm_medium=news)
for more high quality independent investment trust research.

 

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