Amati's Jourdan proposes to oust Maven Renovar board as investors revolt

The battle between Maven Renovar VCT and former manager Paul Jourdan of Amati has intensified, as Jourdan and other investors seek to oust the board.

Maven Renovar VCT (MRV ) has been requisitioned by its former manager Paul Jourdan who, alongside other investors, is seeking to oust the board and install new directors.

The requisitioning of the venture capital fund is the latest twist in the battle between Maven Capital Partners and Amati Global Investors, which was co-founded by Jourdan, after the latter was ousted as manager and replaced by Maven.

The VCT confirmed it had received a letter from Jourdan and a group of other shareholders seeking to convene a general meeting to remove the current board and appoint four replacement directors, including Jourdan, in their place.

Maven said it was reviewing the ‘legal validity’ of the requisition and would make further announcements. The board of the £89m fund urged shareholders not to take action at this time.

It said it would act in the best interests of all shareholders, but said it remains confident that Maven ‘has the skills and resources required to support the management of the company’.

‘Maven has an experienced and competent team who focus on AIM investments and, having taken over the management of the portfolio on 1 May 2025, the team has carried out extensive due diligence on the company’s portfolio and is familiar with each investment in the portfolio and the performance and risks associated therewith,’ it said.

Explaining why they had requisitioned the fund, the dissenting investors pointed to the change in manager, which they said had happened without a shareholder vote on the matter.

They oppose the switch by Maven to an ‘AIM-plus’ strategy that can also invest in private companies, marking a shift from Jourdan’s pure focus on AIM investments. They are concerned that the majority of new investments will be in unquoted companies.

‘This change was put to shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in June, when shareholders decisively rejected the current board’s proposal. In addition, shareholders voted against the re-election of the current directors,’ they said.

The investors added that investment in illiquid unquoted companies is not in shareholders’ best interests and creates ‘a classic liquidity mismatch in the long run’.

‘It also fails to take adequate account of the desire for shareholders to receive their capital back via dividends and share buybacks,’ they said.

The requisition comes just two weeks after a shareholder revolt at the AGM, which left the future of the fund looking uncertain.

Seven of the company’s 12 proposed resolutions failed to pass, including the approval of its AIM-plus investment strategy and the selection of board members. Shareholders representing 14.6% of the share capital cast votes on these seven resolutions. Votes cast against these resolutions were cast by approximately 100 shareholders representing, on average, less than 10 per cent.

There have been ongoing concerns about the future of the fund, previously the Amati AIM VCT, after Amati was sacked as manager in April, earlier than planned.

After an eight-month strategic review following a long run of poor performance, the board announced at the end of last year that it was switching managers, bringing Jourdan’s near two-decade run to an end with a 12-month notice period. However, this was subsequently scrapped.

Shares in the VCT are down 24.8% over the past three years, which compares to a 22.7% loss by the average trust in the AIC’s VCT AIM quoted sector. Last year, AIM fell out of favour after inheritance tax (IHT) relief was halved for stocks on the Alternative Investment Market, announced in the October Budget.