#576642
Postby Dod101 » March 18th, 2023, 12:07 pm
The Lex column of the FT has its story on the boardroom disagreement this morning and on the face of it they might be on to something.
The FT tells us that the dissenting director has been asked to leave (which is not quite what the Chairperson said in the RNS yesterday afternoon.)
However there does seem to be a question worth asking about corporate governance, quite apart from the actual make up of the investments.
According to the FT, the Chair, Fiona McBain, has been a Director since 2009 and may now lack independence. She is also on the Boards of Currys and Direct Line, neither of which has been a huge success recently! Three of the other six board members have been in place since 2015.
All of that is for the Directors and shareholders to do something about.
The dissenting director Amar Bhide has apparently questioned whether portfolio managers at Baillie Gifford had enough time to focus on the private holdings in the portfolio and their limit was raised some time ago to 30% of assets. Presumably because of the drop in NAV, borrowings have now reached a 10 year high of 17%. I have not checked any of these numbers but have taken them from the FT comment.
Anyway, that is why directors are there and they should be questioning what is going on. I am sure that BG will be discussing all of this behind the scenes and I would think we can expect some action from them, but the corporate governance issue is one for the Directors and I hope that Fiona McBain is reflecting on these matters this weekend.
Dod
PS There is also a news item in which the dissenting director is quoted. Pretty obvious that he is not 'one of us' ie a member of the rather cosy world of directors of UK investment trusts and has thus upset the Chair with the temerity to question the criteria for new directors. Good for him, up to a point anyway.