By Caitlin McCabe
The old guard of British finance just landed another punch against Boaz Weinstein.
The hedge-fund rabble-rouser has failed to wrest control of a U.K. investment trust prized for its valuable SpaceX shares, after fellow shareholders turned out in force to reject his bid to oust the board in favor of his own handpicked team.
The crown jewel of the fund, Baillie Gifford's Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust, is a $185 million stake in SpaceX, the Elon Musk rocket company targeting the largest IPO in history.
Weinstein didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The trust's chair, Jonathan Simpson-Dent, said shareholders had decisively rejected the proposal from Weinstein's Saba Capital Management. "Saba remains our largest shareholder and we will continue to seek constructive engagement with them," he added.
Weinstein, a chess ace known for taking down a JPMorgan Chase trader known as the "London Whale," has a history of targeting investment trusts and their U.S. equivalents, closed-end funds. These are listed companies that own and manage portfolios of stocks and other assets, such as stakes in unlisted companies. They often trade at large discounts to the value of their holdings.
He has scored wins with these types of funds, including against investment giant BlackRock in the U.S. His general strategy: Buy the discounted shares and push for changes to lift share prices or let investors cash out.
In the U.K., he was first shot down by investors when he tried to storm the boardrooms of Edinburgh Worldwide and six other investment trusts last year. One British tabloid branded him a "ruthless corporate raider."
Investors weren't sold then on his attempts to install new directors, who would then consider replacing current investment managers -- such as Baillie Gifford -- with Saba. Serving as manager would allow Saba to collect fees and decide what happens to the fund's assets.
Yet Weinstein -- who told The Wall Street Journal last February he "didn't realize how clubby" the U.K. financial world was -- later racked up a string of quiet victories. Several of the British funds he built stakes in have returned cash to shareholders or changed their strategies.
The latest spat over Edinburgh Worldwide began in November, when Saba launched a second formal attempt to purge the fund's directors, after boosting its stake to roughly 30%. Echoing his original attack, Weinstein attacked the fund for underperforming and said he had no faith in the board. In response, the trust ran a campaign to "Stop Saba."
This month, Weinstein raised the stakes. He threatened to sue Edinburgh Worldwide over the decision to cut its SpaceX stake, months before the rocket company's valuation jumped. Weinstein said Baillie Gifford was incompetent, given that in recent years SpaceX's valuation has often increased alongside December stock sales, and that shareholders should have been consulted.
The trust says the stake was cut because it had become too large a share of the fund, which tries to keep single holdings below 10%. The stake sale was "way before the rumors of an IPO" and no one had expected SpaceX's valuation to double, Simpson-Dent said, speaking before the shareholder vote.
Other shareholders voted overwhelmingly against Weinstein. Excluding shares held by Saba, nearly 93% of votes cast rejected his bid to oust the board.
"They had to attract as many shareholders as last year, and that seemed like a tall order," said Shavar Halberstadt, a research analyst at Winterflood Securities, who noted that Edinburgh Worldwide had to fight Saba largely alone this year, unlike last year's seven-trust coalition.
"Not many ways to describe this other than a grand victory for Edinburgh Worldwide, against the odds," Halberstadt said.
Write to Caitlin McCabe at caitlin.mccabe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2026 13:29 ET (18:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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