Saba Threatens Legal Action Against Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust Over SpaceX Share Sale Probe
An activist investor is turning up the heat on a major trust—and the sparks could fly all the way to the courtroom.
The Showdown
Saba Capital Management has fired a warning shot across the bow of the Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust. The hedge fund is threatening to sue if the trust doesn't cough up documents related to its recent sale of SpaceX shares. It's a classic Wall Street power play, wrapped in legal parchment.
Peeking Behind the Curtain
At the heart of the dispute is a simple demand: transparency. Saba wants a full accounting of the sale process—the how, the when, and most importantly, the why. The move signals deep skepticism about how the trust's managers are handling one of their most coveted, and illiquid, assets. After all, selling private SpaceX stock isn't like dumping a few blue-chip shares; it's a maneuver that requires explanation, especially to investors betting on the trust's access to the final frontier.
Why This Matters for Your Portfolio
This isn't just boardroom drama. It's a live case study in corporate governance and shareholder rights. When big funds clash over private asset sales, it puts every manager on notice. Accountability is being demanded, not requested. For the crypto-savvy investor, it's a familiar tune: the call for open ledgers and verifiable transactions doesn't stop at the blockchain—it's creeping into traditional finance's most opaque corners. Perhaps some fund managers could use a lesson in immutable, public audit trails. Just a thought.
The threat of legal action cuts through the usual polite City chatter. It forces a question other shareholders might be too polite to ask: what exactly are you doing with our money? The trust now has a choice: open its books or brace for a battle. One thing's for sure—in the high-stakes game of portfolio management, silence is rarely a winning strategy.
Legal action on the table
The hedge fund manages about $6 billion in assets. It’s set a deadline of January 9 for EWIT’s board to address concerns about the transaction. “Unless and until we receive satisfactory responses to these questions and concerns, we reserve all of our rights, including to issue proceedings on behalf of” EWIT, Saba said in its letter.
Saba’s done the math and says shareholders already lost out on £37 million—that’s $49.9 million—because of how the sale was handled.
This isn’t the first fight between these two. Weinstein is trying to replace EWIT’s entire board with his own picks. A shareholder vote on this is scheduled for January 20. The hedge fund tried something similar less than a year ago but didn’t succeed.
Legal & General Group, a major UK asset manager, said Tuesday it WOULD vote against Saba’s proposal. The plan “lacks sufficient detail regarding its future strategy” for managing the fund, they said.
Weinstein ran a big campaign in late 2024 to take control of seven different UK investment funds trading below their actual asset values. Those attempts failed, but some of the targeted funds ended up making the structural changes Saba wanted anyway.
The current fight is about the proposed merger of Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust with Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust. Saba’s argument is simple: the SpaceX share sale was mishandled and happened at bad prices.
Board defends its position
Jonathan Simpson-Dent chairs Edinburgh Worldwide’s board. He’s pushed back on Saba’s latest campaign by bringing up the failed attempt earlier this year. “Less than a year ago, you launched a similar campaign seeking to remove the board and replace it with your own nominees,” Simpson-Dent said. “That proposal was overwhelmingly rejected by shareholders who recognized your objectives for what they were, an attempt to take control of the board in order to pursue your own agenda.”
Weinstein built his reputation as a derivatives specialist. He’s famous for his role in the London Whale trading incident. He’s already spent years and billions buying up stakes in US closed-end funds run by BlackRock and other big asset managers.
Now he’s focused on Britain’s investment trust sector. The sector has had a rough time lately, high interest rates, limited size and trading activity, plus new regulations around cost disclosure haven’t helped. Investment trusts still make up about a third of the FTSE 250 index. A bunch of mergers that started in 2023 have shrunk the sector.
SpaceX is moving ahead with plans for what could be the largest initial public offering in history along with OpenAI and Anthropic. People familiar with the plans say the company wants to raise more than $30 billion.
The offering could happen anywhere from mid-2026 to late 2026. The exact timing depends on market conditions and other factors. Some sources say it might even slip into 2027.
SpaceX plans to use money from the public offering to build space-based data centers. That includes buying the computer chips needed to run them. Musk talked about this idea recently at a Baron Capital event. The company’s Starlink satellite internet service and its Starship rocket program are pushing the timeline for going public.
For investors in Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, the January 20 vote will decide whether they trust the current board’s handling of their investments or want new management under Saba’s direction. The outcome could shape how other UK investment trusts deal with similar situations down the road.
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