Shareholder pressure is reshaping two investment trusts. Saba Capital, the New York-based hedge fund, has sold its entire 5% stake in Baillie Gifford UK Growth, while investors in Partners Group Private Equity have voted to wind that trust down and return their money.
Saba first disclosed its holding in UK Growth last March and did not add to it before selling out last Wednesday. Over that period the £211m trust delivered a share price total return of 26.5%, and its discount narrowed from 10.4% to 9.8%. That trailed the 31.5% average return of its peers in the UK All Companies sector, which trade at an average discount of 6%. Over ten years UK Growth has risen 69.6%, the weakest result in its peer group and well behind the sector average of 135.2%.
Chair Neil Rogan has said that “patience is thin” after James Smith was appointed in June 2026, amid concern about continued underperformance at the trust, which Milena Mileve and Iain McCombie have co-managed since 2018. Saba’s exit does not end its campaign against Baillie Gifford. It is still targeting the £1.1bn Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust, where it lodged a requisition in June and will try for a third time on 23 October to remove the board and install its own candidates, one of them a Saba employee. Ahead of that vote it has built its stake to 29.9%, just below the 30% level that would require a mandatory takeover bid.
At Partners Group Private Equity, more than 74% of shareholders at a September meeting chose a wind-down over a proposed dual share class structure. That plan, put forward in June, would have placed 30% of the share capital in realisation shares designed to return capital close to par over eight years, a proportion the board raised to 40% last month. Chair Peter McKellar said the vote showed most shareholders wanted “a clear path to liquidity”.
With demand for an exit exceeding the 40% threshold, the board concluded after consulting the investment manager that an orderly sale of the whole portfolio would be fairest to all shareholders. A managed wind-down will be the only resolution put to investors at an extraordinary general meeting on 7 October. The trust currently trades at a 40% discount to its net asset value.
