Saba Capital made several personal attacks against three Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) board members in a presentation last week, including chair Jonathan Simpson-Dent for his time as chief financial officer of HomeServe.

The emergency home repair company was fined £30.7m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2014 – the highest penalty ever given to a retail company by the watchdog – for mis-selling insurance policies and failing to adequately investigate complaints between January 2005 and October 2011. Simpson-Dent served as a board member between March 2007 and June 2009.

In its report, the FCA reprimanded HomeServe for ‘serious, systemic and long running failings, extending across many key aspects of its business’, highlighting that ‘its board was insufficiently engaged with compliance matters’.

Saba accused EWI of breaching the FCA’s listing rules, which require details of any public criticisms to be disclosed when a new director is appointed.

However, a spokesperson for EWI said Saba ‘clearly hasn’t done its homework’, pointing to the public announcement it made when Simpson-Dent joined the board in 2020. Though it mentions his prior role at HomeServe, it does not reference the fine issued by the FCA.

Edinburgh Worldwide’s spokesperson called Saba’s claims ‘a deliberate attempt to cast aspersions on his reputation’ ahead of its requisitioned vote against the board on 20 January.

‘Saba’s presentation contains numerous inaccurate statements designed to mislead shareholders as part of this US hedge fund’s aggressive campaign to achieve its ultimate objective – to seize control of the company for its own commercial advantage at the expense of other shareholders,’ they added.

In its presentation, Saba also accused Simpson-Dent of receiving a near-50% pay increase when he was promoted to chair last year, despite EWI underperforming its benchmark at the time.

While Simpson-Dent was paid more when he moved to this more senior role, EWI’s spokesperson highlighted that the chair’s salary remained exactly the same as his predecessor.

When given the choice to increase the director’s fees in March 2025, Simpson-Dent and the board rejected the proposal.

‘Saba is clearly seeking to portray a misleading narrative of weak governance through unfounded assertions while simultaneously campaigning for the appointment of its three US-based nominees selected solely by Saba, none of whom has any experience of UK public companies or UK governance standards,’ the spokesperson said.

Saba also targeted Gregory Eckersley, who joined the board in February last year, for his involvement in oil and gas exploration company Lekoil between May 2013 and December 2019. During that time, it was scammed out of $600,000 in a fake loan by an organisation pretending to be the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.

Edinburgh Worldwide’s longest-serving director Mungo Wilson, who has been on the board since December 2016, also came under fire for breaching the nine-year limit imposed on board members in the Association of Investment Companies’ (AIC) Code of Corporate Governance rules.

Saba reiterated that its proposed directors – ATG Capital Management’s Gabi Gliksberg, Stansberry Asset Management’s Michael Joseph, and former Allied Express COO Jassen Trenkow – are independent of the company.

In response to the presentation, Simpson-Dent demanded that Saba disclose its intended plan with EWI, which so far does not go beyond replacing the board. He said in an open letter that shareholders deserve ‘full transparency and clarity regarding your demand to remove the company’s entire independent board and replace it with your three US-based directors’.

Posting on X shortly after, Saba founder Boaz Weinstein said: ‘We haven’t disclosed a plan because all decisions about EWI will be made by a new, independent board—not by Saba.

‘That differs from our last campaign, when we nominated a Saba representative, a fact Mr. Simpson-Dent omits.’