22-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Date set for showdown in battle for Maven Renovar VCT
Maven Renovar claims that its former asset manager lost almost 10% of the trust's current market capitalisation on three "unquoted/pre-IPO" investments, the latest in a series of allegations against Amati.
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Amati maintains that "the real and most important question" is whether shareholders will be allowed to determine the best strategy for the company going forward. A general meeting to vote on the requisitioners' proposals has been set for August 13.
The requisitioners are opposing the board's decision earlier this year to remove Amati as the manager of the VCT without a shareholder vote. Directors of investment trusts are not obliged to have a shareholder vote when changing fund management arrangements.
The July 1 requisition request from the group led by Mr Jourdan came a week after shareholders of the venture capital trust voted to sack the board of Maven Renovar. They also rejected proposals for a switch to an "AIM Plus" investment strategy under the trust's new fund manager, Glasgow-based Maven Capital Partners.
Previously known as the Amati AIM VCT, the fund's mandate is to invest in London's junior Alternative Investment Market (AIM). The new strategy would have seen the introduction of a pipeline of deals in private companies alongside investments in the junior market.
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The requisitioners are calling for the existing board of directors led by chair Fiona Wollocombe to be replaced by Mr Jourdan, Charles McMicking, Hector Kilpatrick and Kathleen McLeay. The current directors remain in place on a caretaker basis until new board members are elected.
In a statement, Mr Jourdan and Mr McMicking said the events of the past few months have been the result of the board Maven Renovar acting without proper consultation with shareholders. Robert Legget, who was appointed to the board at the June meeting when the existing directors were voted out, said the central matter is the fund's under-performance while under Amati's management.
"Shareholders have a very simple choice: to let the former investment manager, whose performance caused significant loss to the company, onto the board and into a conflicted position alongside other proposed directors selected by him/the requisitioners, or to agree with the independent board that a credible plan to halt this decline was in shareholders' best interests," Mr Legget said.
"It is a critical function of an independent board that it selects and appoints investment managers in accordance with shareholders' best interests, and I commend the board for taking decisive action to address underperformance prior to my joining."
