Secret shareholder helped swing crucial trust vote in favour of Saba

A mystery shareholder gave crucial backing to American raider Boaz Weinstein’s bid to block a cash-out vote for investors in the British investment trust Edinburgh Worldwide, The Mail on Sunday understands.

The unidentified investor snapped up a 4 per cent stake in Edinburgh Worldwide about six weeks before a vote on plans that would have allowed shareholders to exit the trust and avoid being trapped if Saba took control of the business. 

The proposal was defeated when investors, including Saba and the mystery shareholder, voted 53.8 per cent against the plans, meaning the anonymous investor’s stake was vital in deciding the outcome.

A source said: ‘We saw in the last few weeks that there was another buyer in the market. We believe that buyer, who is hidden behind an intermediary, controls around 4 per cent of the company.’

There is no suggestion that Saba and the other investor actively cooperated prior to the vote.

Investment trust bosses have demanded that the City watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), intervene to stop minority investors such as Saba calling repeated votes to force their agenda on companies.

But Simon Walls at the FCA told The Mail on Sunday that such events were part of the ‘rough and tumble of the markets’.