Proxy advisers ISS and Glass Lewis have recommended Impax Environmental Markets (IEM) shareholders vote for the exit tender offer at the general meeting on 16 April which the company wants to give investors an escape from the fund before activist 22% investor Saba Capital takes control. IEM chair Glen Suarez said: “These independent endorsements reinforce the importance of enabling shareholders to exit the company at close to net asset value, rather than remain exposed to the risks associated with Saba potentially becoming the controlling shareholder and exercising significant influence over the company’s strategy, objectives and mandate. I strongly urge all shareholders to take action without delay.”

FTSE Russell has confirmed Vietnam will be promoted from frontier to secondary emerging market status on 21 September and will be added to its global equity indices in four phases over the following 12 months. VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity (VOF) fund manager says this “positive and long anticipated milestone” is expected to attract $5-6bn in foreign capital inflows and comes as the VN-Index is trading at one of its most attractive valuation levels in the past five years, “weighed down by adverse sentiment stemming from the US-Iran war”.

International Biotechnology Trust (IBT) fund managers said they were seeing “frenetic dealmaking” in the biotech sector after Soleno Therapeutics, IBT’s largest holding at 6% of net assets, yesterday agreed to a $2.9bn acquisition by  Neurocrine Biosciences. Ailsa Craig and Marek Poszepczynski said this was the fourth acquisition in the portfolio this year. “We expect this wave of M&A activity to continue and have positioned our portfolio to take advantage, with the drivers of elevated deal-flow activity likely to remain firmly in place for the foreseeable future,” they said. IBT shares rose from 939.4p to 950p with the deal adding around 21p to net asset value per share. They stand on a 12% discount and have rallied 82% in the past year.

US fund manager The Capital Group has doubled its position to 10% in 3i Group (III) as shares in the FTSE 100 private equity giant show signs of a recovery from last month’s sell-off but stand on an 11% discount to net asset value.

Partners Group Private Equity (PEY) has allocated another €18m (£15.7m) to share buybacks on top of the €1.6m left from the programme announced last October. The €19.6m authority will end on 31 July. The £588m investment company stands on a 32% discount. It says its free cash flow at 31 March was €24m after a first quarter saw “a healthy flow of liquidity events” in which it received distributions of around €56m. New investment activity was “more muted” at about €12m.

Outflows from UK open-ended funds surged to £1.44bn in March from £927m in February, their worst month since last November according to data provider Calastone. The biggest deterioration was seen in European, Asia-Pacific, emerging markets and Japanese funds but UK-focused funds again bore the brunt with £592m withdrawn, although this was only slightly up from the £555m of outflows in February. North American equities was the only sector to see inflows though these fell from £371m in February to £99m. With yields rising around the world on oil-shock inflation fears, investors pulled £535m from bond funds, more than reversing February’s inflows. March was the worst month for fixed income funds since April last year and the seventh worst on record. 

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