By Michael Kokalari CFA, chief economist, and Thai Thi Viet Trinh, senior economist.

Shareholders of seven UK-listed investment trusts face a crucial vote during the upcoming general meetings. The trusts are Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust (USA), CQS Natural Resources Growth & Income (CYN), Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI), The European Smaller Companies Trust (ESCT), Keystone Positive Change Investment Trust (KPC), Henderson Opportunities Trust (HOT) and Herald Investment Trust (HRI). Their shareholders need to either approve or reject the agenda pursued by US hedge fund Saba Capital Management, which has built sizeable stakes of c 20–30% in these trusts in recent months, mostly by using a leveraged strategy via total return swaps. We recommend that investors carefully consider Saba’s radical proposals to oust the existing boards, replace them with new directors proposed by Saba and take over the management of the assets. Saba will likely favour a plain opportunistic arbitrage strategy to exploit the discounts to NAV among UK-listed investment trusts (by replicating the strategy of Saba Closed-End Funds ETF, ticker: CEFS), coupled with growing its own assets under management (AUM) and fee income, over providing shareholders with a truly differentiated value proposition tailored to each of these trusts.