CHARLES CLARK, a rebel shareholder in three venture capital trusts managed by Close Brothers, has secured investor backing for a vote to oust all 13 of the trusts’ board directors.
Mr Clark, the former head of Panmure Gordon’s asset management unit, is seeking to remove the three boards after each switched their respective trust fund’s management from Aberdeen Asset Management to Close Brothers without consulting investors in February.
The three venture capital trusts each agreed to table resolutions calling for their boards’ removal at their respective annual meetings, scheduled for before September.
Mr Clark, who has invested more than £50,000 in the trusts, has lined up five potential board directors to sit on three streamlined boards, which he says will cut the annual remuneration per board from about £55,000 to about £28,000.
The proposed new board directors include Charles Taylor, former commercial banking director at Alliance & Leicester, and Victor Steel, who has been a director of Kingfisher, the DIY retailer, and Guinness.
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A spokesman for the trusts, named Murray VCT, Murray VCT2 and Murray VCT3, said that the boards were seeking further information from Mr Clark and his proposed team on their plans for the investment vehicles.
“Once Mr Clark and his proposed directors have responded to our questions then we will be in a position to make our own recommendations and to provide shareholders with sufficient information on which to base their voting decisions,” he said. “We will then notify shareholders as to when the AGMs will take place.”