US activist Boaz Weinstein wants to ‘white knight’ UK stock market

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US hedge fund boss Boaz Weinstein says he wants to become a “white knight” for UK investors and the London stock market by buying a £266bn investment trust sector.

The founder of New York-based Sabah Capital is campaigning. Seven UK investment trusts have taken over.. Weinstein told the Financial Times that if he succeeds, he will combine his holdings by selling off expensive US stocks and buying shares in UK companies and other UK investment trusts.

“We are the white knight.” Weinstein he said. “We are not Americans taking the assets to America, we are coming to help small English investors.

If we are successful and become the fund manager, US stocks such as Tesla can be sold and UK investment stocks can be bought.

Investment trust shares suffered from a general gloom about the London market: several companies left the market or moved their main listings from the UK to the US, and there were few IPOs.

According to the investment firms trade body, the average share price decline in UK investment trusts was 15.4 per cent – close to the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis.

Weinstein calls Saba Capital a “new product . . . An investment trust in the UK usually holds other investment trusts. So it creates billions of pounds worth of demand.

His comments give more details to Sabah’s plans for trustees as the company tries to master one of the biggest coups the 150-year-old sector has ever faced. The plan is to merge into a new vehicle and buy the combined assets for other shares if shareholders agree.

The trusts are currently managed by Baillie Gifford, Janus Henderson, Manulife and Herald Investment Management. Referring to the Baillie Gifford US Growth trust, Weinstein said: “This means the Baillie Gifford fund will be less on the London Stock Exchange – it’s not like M&S has cancelled, the (current) trust is a Tesla and Nvidia shell.” Instead, you’ll end up with us at the LSE.

James Budden, director of Bailey Gifford, said: “This is a case of faulty logic – there are hundreds of trusts listed on the LSE. If Saba goes around merging them into their funds, there will be fewer companies and investable properties and fewer options and choices for investors.

Saba plans to become the investment manager for trustees, including Weinstein, if its shareholders agree to replace the board with candidates chosen by the company.

But his approach has been criticized as “accidental” by some fund managers. Expressing concerns Retail shareholders do not vote. An existing manager realizes that shareholders may be sitting in a completely different vehicle than the one they originally bought.

“If they were careless, maybe[the believers]should have treated them better,” Weinstein said.