A group of dissenting shareholders has been unsuccessful in its bid to appoint Amati Global Investors’ Paul Jourdan to the board of the Maven Renovar VCT.
Amati Global Investors (AGI) was replaced as investment manager of the trust by Maven Capital Partners earlier this year to boost performance and the trust was subsequently rebranded in May.
But at the company’s AGM in June, the board failed to be re-elected, with shareholders also rejecting the board’s proposed change of investment strategy.
At the end of June, Jourdan and a group of 37 other shareholders requisitioned a meeting to vote on proposals for the board to be replaced with new directors, including himself.
At the general meeting today (13 August) more than 1800 shareholders voted on the requisitioned resolutions, representing 35% of the shares issued, of which 1,500 supported the reappointment of the current independent board.
Opposition to the current board was concentrated among a minority of shareholders with significantly larger holdings, while 87% of those with fewer than 50,000 shares voted with the board.
Bill Nixon, managing partner of Maven Capital Partners, said: “I welcome the result of today’s General Meetings and the clear expression of confidence it provides in the current board of Maven Renovar VCT. It is positive to see such a strong turnout from shareholders, with significantly more participating than at the recent AGM.
“The outcome brings an end to a period of unhelpful distraction and allows the board and Maven to now refocus fully on their shared objective, which is to deliver value recovery for all shareholders.”
He added: “We acknowledge and respect that some shareholders supported an alternative strategy, and we will be consulting with the board of the VCT to consider what options may be open should those shareholders wish to exit their investment.”
In response to today’s outcome, the group of requisitioners said in a statement: “We note the result of the vote and the substantial support shown by shareholders for the requisitioned resolutions, but we respect the decision of the majority.
“Our actions were guided by the belief that a significant group of shareholders had a desire to see the strategy set out in the requisition adopted and felt it important that the wider shareholder base should be offered the chance to consider this.
“We did what we could to get our message out to all shareholders, but in the event this proved to be extremely difficult. We are now keen that this episode be marked as closed.”
