Saba Capital Management

It's interesting.

One of the larger trusts actually is in the middle of dealing with activists, Saba Capital and another very large activist investor.

I'm talking about SDCL Efficiency Income Trust, it's called now.

And there the board has agreed to put a Saba nominated director on the board.

But I would argue it actually provides us with a degree of stability and a genuine kind of alignment of interests between the controlling family and external shareholders.

You are allowed to mention Saba Capital by name, if you like.

Of course.

So if we're thinking of this in terms of the context of the investment trust universe, this is therefore a structure which is now, in its more simplified form, similar to some other trusts where there's a significant family holding.

We know that asset value investors are also focusing on the alternative space.

And of course, our friends at Saba Capital have been building up positions in alternative asset trusts as well.

So that's where all the focus of the attention now is.

Well, let's talk about Saba and what else we can say about them, how they're progressing with their various campaigns.

Please note that while our comments are well-researched and our opinions honestly held, we do not offer individual stock recommendations.

In this shorter midweek episode of the Moneymakers podcast, I will be talking to Angus Gordon-Lennox, who is the chairman of Gore Street Energy Storage, an investment trust that is very much in the news at the moment and has a good fortune or otherwise, depending on your point of view, of being the latest investment trust to fall into the crosshairs of Saba Capital.

There's a crucial general meeting coming up on September the 16th, where shareholders will be invited to vote on a series of resolutions, including two from Saba, which effectively invite shareholders to sack the board and wind up the trust.

I think that's pretty much the situation, is it not, Angus?

One question before we move on to other topics.

If you talk to people in the investment trust business now, they all say, well, we've got to attract a new generation of investors.

We've got to attract younger people to invest in investment trusts.

Do you think that is realistic as an ambition or even sensible as an ambition in the sense that you imagine that most people who invest in investment trusts are people who have some savings, typically been working for a while, and they're smart enough to either know about investment trusts or to be introduced to them by somebody? Do you think that actually going after a younger generation just because you need new investors to create more demand is a sensible strategy?

I think it is that there's no reason not to go after the young investors.

You know, I'm surprised listening to my boys talking about what they're doing and their friends are doing.