A cohort of dissenting shareholders has accused the board of the Maven Renovar VCT of “attempting to unfairly discredit” the shareholders who have requisitioned an AGM to discuss the future of the trust’s management.
Amati Global Investors (AGI) was replaced as investment manager of the trust by Maven Capital Partners earlier this year to boost performance. The trust was rebranded in May.
But at the company’s AGM on 19 June, the board failed to be re-elected, with shareholders also rejecting the board’s proposed change of investment strategy.
Subsequently, on 30 June, the company received a requisition request from AGI fund manager Paul Jourdan, and a group of other shareholders, that included proposals for the current independent board to be replaced with new directors, including Jourdan.
The board retaliated earlier this week in a circular, suggesting the proposals to replace the board are “motivated by the interests of the former investment manager” and “are not in the best interests of shareholders”, recommending shareholders vote against the resolutions to be put forward at the requisitioned general meeting.
Director Robert Legget said: “AGI's poor performance as investment manager is the reason the board instigated a review, and why they were replaced by Maven.
“To see a former investment manager with such a dismal recent track record now seek to appoint himself and two of his fellow requisitioners to the board is quite extraordinary.”
The board outlined the underperformance of the trust between 1 February 2021 to the end of AGI’s tenure, when the trust’s NAV declined by £135m.
However, the proposed directors, which also include Charles McMicking, Kathleen McLeay and Hector Kilpatrick, accused the board of “cherry picking” the timeframe for the portfolio analysis to “paint Amati’s management of the VCT in a bad light”.
The two sides are also at loggerheads over derisking the portfolio, with the proposed directors proposing a controlled disposal programme over a number of years while Maven is warning against a “fire sale” of investments.
Reacting to the circular, the cohort said the current board has “patently not acted in the interests of shareholders.”
“The shareholders are quite capable of voting for a different board if they don’t agree with what they are doing,” the firm said. “This would apply equally to the proposed board.”
In a subsequent statement circulated yesterday (24 July), the shareholders accused the board of “burying” information and presenting shareholders with a “one-sided case”.
"It is disappointing that instead of presenting the matter fairly the present board has seemed determined to bury the position of the requisitioning shareholders by putting a one-sided case to the fore while at the same time attempting to unfairly discredit the requisitioning shareholders and proposed directors.”
