Saba Investments - why it sees an opportunity in UK investment trusts

Max King looks at why ever-widening discounts may have created an opportunity for Saba Investments in the UK world of investment trusts

Boaz Weinstein, founder and chief investment officer of Saba Capital Management, during the Bloomberg Invest event
(Image credit: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The ingrained habit of many British investors of buying at the high and selling at the low partly explains the low stock market exposure of UK savers. True to form, when stock markets started falling in early 2022 and predictions of stagflation were everywhere, UK investors started selling and continued to sell when markets started to rally in the autumn.

The consequence for investment trusts was that losses on underlying investments were aggravated by their shares trading on ever-widening discounts to net asset value, which went from 2% in early 2022 to 18% in late 2023. Investment trust boards responded by buying back shares, thereby enhancing net asset values, merging, winding up their trusts and reassuring investors. Despite many excellent investment performances in 2024, discounts remain wide at around 15%.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.