Shareholders in Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust today voted against a New York hedge fund’s attempt to unseat the board, completing a clean sweep of trusts to reject the proposal.

Of the total votes cast at the requisitioned general meeting, 63.8% of shares were voted against Saba Capital’s resolutions. A total of 36.2% of shares voted in favour, including the shares held by Saba.

Shareholders representing 64.7% of the total issued share capital voted on the resolutions.

Saba Capita, led by Boaz Weinstein, had argued that the seven trusts were underperforming and hoped to persuade shareholders to dispose of their directors and elect new board members.

Jonathan Simpson-Dent, chairman of the EWIT, said: “Edinburgh Worldwide’s shareholders have spoken: they have rejected Saba Capital’s proposal for a fundamentally different strategy based on fundamentally different principles with a fundamentally different investment approach.

“Today’s result confirms that this unique mandate still appeals, but shareholders also expect the trust to deliver.

“We took decisive action in 2024 with positive early results. Our job now is to deliver the performance our shareholders rightly expect.”

Saba has recently launched a fresh attempt to change the focus of four trusts, including one from the earlier campaign.

In this latest move Saba has called for votes at CQS Natural Resources Growth & Income (CYN), European Smaller Companies (ESCT), Middlefield Canadian Income (MCT) and Schroder UK Mid Cap (SCP) to roll their assets into comparable open-ended funds.