Discussion with Ben Yearsley & Hector Kilpatrick regarding recent developments with Maven Renovar VCT focusing on shareholder engagement from Board during Strategic Review (6 minutes long)
Monday 30 th June 2025 MAVEN RENOVAR VCT PLC (‘the Company’) Shareholders call for a new Board to be elected to Maven Renovar VCT A group of shareholders representing more than 5% of the shareholder base has today filed a notice under Section 303 of the Companies Act 2006 (“S303”) communication with the Board of Maven Renovar VCT plc, which requires the Company to hold a General Meeting to elect a board of newly proposed directors. The letter comes in the wake of the Company’s recent Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) (19 June), when shareholders voted against the re-election of the Board and rejected the Board’s proposal to alter the Trust’s investment strategy. With the shareholder vote at this year’s AGM more than three times higher than the average seen at the Company’s AGMs over the course of the last seven years, this was a very clear message from shareholders. In sending through a S303 request, the dissenting shareholders have the right...
Kathleen McLeay has a first-class honours law degree and qualified as a solicitor in 1999 with Dundas & Wilson (now CMS). She worked in their corporate finance team post qualification. During this time she spent a period of secondment with merchant bank Noble Grossart and was lured out of law moving to join E&Y’s PLC team in 2001. She then moved with a colleague to a smaller boutique corporate finance house before joining Noble Group in late 2003 based in Edinburgh and London. Kathleen initially worked in the Financial Institutions Group and was heavily involved in the launch and float of the Company in 2005. She later moved to the Retail and Consumer Group and ultimately to Noble Corporate Management (“NCM”) to take over their Regulated Operator business. Kathleen built this business over a number of years and in 2009 participated in a buyout with her now Chairman to take NCM out of the Group into their ownership with Katheen as CEO. This business now has 80 employees and...
Shareholders will be aware that the Company’s directors decided to change the manager from Amati Global Investors to Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”) without allowing shareholders a vote on the matter. Integral to this move was their recommended change of strategy which would result in the majority of new investments being made in unquoted companies. This change was put to shareholders at the Company’s AGM in June, when shareholders decisively rejected the current Board’s proposal. In addition, shareholders voted against the re-election of the current directors. Reasons why to support the Requisitioners We believe that the current Board’s proposal to make new qualifying investments in unquoted companies, which are usually illiquid for 3-10 years, is not in shareholders’ best interests. It does not reflect the degree to which shareholders in the Company have passed the five-year holding period for their investment. This risks creating a classic liquidity mismatch in the long run. I...