In this episode, our director of content, investment companies Milosz Papst talks about Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust. This is a timely podcast as the trust is once again under fire from US-based activist hedge fund Saba Capital Management. Shareholders voted decisively against Saba’s proposals in February 2025 and Edinburgh Worldwide’s board is urging shareholders to do so again. This time round, Saba has amassed a larger stake in the trust and is proposing to replace Edinburgh Worldwide’s board with three of its own representative but has given no indication about the trust’s future strategy. Timing is tight as the general meeting is scheduled for 12:00 noon on 20 January 2026. The cut-off for submitting votes is 12:00 noon on Saturday 17 January 2026 but for platforms, the date may be as soon as 12 January 2026.

Papst provides a brief introduction to Edinburgh Worldwide before highlighting how the board has proactively addressed a period of poor performance. This included enhancing the investment team and meaningful improvements in portfolio construction and execution, such as fewer holdings and stricter measures to address underperforming investments. The portfolio was reshaped to include more profitable, cash-generative companies and to have greater sector diversification. These efforts have led to notably better performance.

Attention then returns to the pressing issue of Saba. Edinburgh Worldwide’s board strongly urges all of its shareholders, no matter how large or how small, to vote against Saba’s proposal to take control of the trust in a move that would favour Saba over the trust’s existing shareholders. Saba has not stated its intentions, beyond replacing the board, and has failed to engage, including a lack of response to a list of questions in Edinburgh Worldwide’s open letter on 30 December 2025.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors.

In this episode, our director of content, investment trusts Milosz Papst talks about Murray International. This is our first podcast focusing on this large, well-established fund, so he starts by providing an introduction to the company, before highlighting how it differs from its peers in the AIC Global Equity Income sector. Murray International has a notable below-market weight in the US and a meaningful allocation to emerging markets. Discussion then moves onto the investment process, which features Aberdeen’s focus on quality and value, and input from its regional investment teams. He then provides more information about the portfolio, which is broadly diversified by geography and sector. To bring some more colour, he gives some examples of recent transactions, where portfolio activity has been higher than average as Murray International’s managers have found increased opportunities in a volatile market. Attention then turns to the trust’s performance and the change in the company’s reference measure to what is a more relevant MSCI ACWI High Dividend Yield Index given Murray International’s emphasis on income and dividend growth. Papst then highlights the trust’s competitive fee structure and its valuation, before wrapping up with summary of the key takeaways of the Murray International story.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors.

Edison’s investment companies team recently published a review of The Diverse Income Trust. Managers Gervais Williams and Martin Turner believe that income stocks are set to become market leaders due to their steady cash returns to shareholders in an environment of nationalism and volatile asset prices. The UK looks particularly attractive as it has been devalued by persistent outflows since Brexit and within this market many small-cap equity income stocks are trading on what the managers say are ‘absurdly low valuations’. The Diverse Income Trust is a unique proposition with an income and capital growth strategy spread across the market cap spectrum. Since the trust was launched in April 2011, it has an unbroken record of higher annual dividends and has outperformed all but one of its 17 peers in the AIC UK Equity Income sector, along with its comparator indices by a wide margin.

In this episode, our director of content, investment trusts Milosz Papst provides an update on Franklin Global Trust, which was formerly the Martin Currie Global Portfolio Trust and featured in one of our October 2024 podcasts. Martin Currie’s parent Legg Mason was acquired by Franklin Templeton Investments in July 2020, but the brand was only retired earlier this year. The trust’s manager Zehrid Osmani and his team combined with the much larger US-based Franklin Equity Group and Jonathan Curtis was appointed as co-manager. Milosz then discusses Franklin Global Trust’s objective and investment process before explaining what it offers investors. He highlights that the trust is a straightforward equity portfolio with no unlisted businesses or derivatives, and is relatively concentrated, with around 30 holdings. Following on, he discusses the trust’s geographic and sector positioning and some of its larger holdings. He then focuses on performance, which has been disappointing in recent years due to the trust’s focus on growth stocks, which derated in a rising interest rate environment, and also there was insufficient exposure to the ‘Magnificent Seven’ large-cap technology stocks. However, over the longer term, the growth strategy has proved successful and during the dip in performance the managers have made improvements to the investment process. Finally, he discusses the trust’s dividend and its significant distributable reserves, and the zero-discount policy, which means that there are share buybacks on most trading days.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors.

In this episode, our director of content, investment trusts Milosz Papst provides a brief introduction to The Diverse Income Trust (DIVI). It is managed by Gervais Williams and Martin Turner at Premier Miton Group, who aim to generate a dividend income stream that is more resilient and has the potential to grow faster than those of the trust’s peers. Milosz then explains how stocks are selected, emphasising the importance of company meetings to the research process. He provides information about the main features of DIVI’s portfolio and the trust’s dividend history before turning to the UK market, which includes the managers’ very optimistic outlook for UK stocks.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors.

In this episode, our director of content, investment trusts Milosz Papst provides an overview of specialist fund manager Polar Capital before moving onto a more detailed introduction to Polar Capital Global Financials Trust including its income and capital return objective. Listeners may not appreciate that financials is one of the largest global sectors, so we provide some context to the trust’s investment universe and what are the important considerations for potential investors. Milosz then takes a look at the trust’s portfolio including subsector exposures and important themes before highlighting some of the recent activity in the fund. He concludes by focusing on recent developments for the trust, namely a reduced fee structure and an enhanced dividend policy.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors

In this episode, our director of content, investment trusts Milosz Papst provides a recap of the seven investment principles and proprietary Matrix used by the trust’s managers. He discusses the three growth buckets within the trust’s portfolio: resilient UK-only businesses, leading global businesses and companies growing via international expansion. He highlights that, at the current valuation levels, investors are only paying a modest premium to gain exposure to high-quality UK small-cap growth stocks despite a difficult, low growth economic environment. He also comments on the trust’s long-term record of outperformance versus its reference index and peers, as well as its more recent returns. Finally, he talks about the triple discount arising from low UK valuations vs other geographies, low UK small-cap valuations vs UK large-cap stocks, as well as the discount to NAV at which the trust’s shares currently trade.

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About Uncovering Trusts: Uncovering Trusts is a podcast run by Edison analysts, which is released every two weeks. Subscribe to hear analyst interviews on how investment trusts maximise returns while managing risks for investors.