The big Investors must speak up for UK share ownership and fight off the US marauders, says ALEX BRUMMER
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General meetings may be imperfect, but are the key to shareholder democracy. Private equity management, hedge funds and other unlisted vehicles hide behind layers of complex ownership and answer only to themselves. Listed companies offer investors, retail and fund managers the chance for a say.
Most often, the annual meetings of investment trusts are held quietly, few red flags are raised, and one would be hard pressed to know what transpired. Today’s session of the £1.4billion Herald Investment Trust in the City, the first of ‘Seven Miserables’ being targeted by US marauder Boaz Weinstein, allows investors to be heard.
Weinstein’s group Saba has built a substantial 27.8 per cent stake, according to Refinitiv data. Short-termist: Today's AGM of the £1.4bn Herald Investment Trust, the first of 'Seven Miserables' being targeted by Saba Capital's Boaz Weinstein, allows investors to be heard.
It sets out with a formidable advantage in its effort to substitute the current directors, headed by chairman Andrew Joy, with its own placemen. In the past, Alliance Trust, Electra and the sector’s grandparent Foreign & Colonial have all been boarded by rapacious predators.
It is not just trusts which need to publicly defend themselves. City grandees need to use today’s general meeting, and those coming down the pike, to stand up a marbled pillar of UK share ownership. Postal workers, mainly represented by the Communication Workers Union, need to carefully consider whether they can trust the undertakings made by the Czech Sphinx Daniel Kretinsky.
