Shareholders in Alliance Trust (ATST) and Witan Investment Trust (WTAN) should have received voting instructions for how to vote on the proposed merger of the two companies (I hold one of them). I commented on the relative performance of the two trusts earlier this year – see https://roliscon.blog/2024/03/25/alliance-trust-and-witan-why-is-one-doing-well-but-not-the-other/
Clearly shareholders in Witan might be unhappy and might welcome the merger but I can see little benefit for Alliance Trust shareholders. The combined trust will be larger and hence the ongoing charge for Alliance shareholders might improve slightly but it is already quite low at 62 bps. But the larger an investment trust becomes the worse the performance tends to be. There are only so many “good ideas” that a fund manager can have.
As a holder of only Alliance Trust I have therefore voted against the merger. This is one of the proposals that seems of more benefit to the fund managers than to the shareholders.
BUT DO MAKE SURE YOU VOTE!
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
You can “follow” this blog by entering your email address in the box below. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.