Fund research firm Kepler Trust Intelligence said on Tuesday that shareholders of Baillie Gifford’s £864 million Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust plc (EWIT) should vote against proposals from New York hedge fund Saba Capital Management to remove all six of Edinburgh Worldwide’s independent non-executive directors and appoint three US-based individuals nominated by Saba.

“… we view the approach as cynical …” said Kepler. “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.”

Kepler said in its analysis report that was commissioned by Baillie Gifford: “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.”

Kepler added: “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 …”