Impax Environmental Markets (IEM)’s new board has served notice to terminate Impax Asset Management as its investment manager and is now seeking a new manager or alternative.
Under the terms of the investment management agreement, this should result in a 12-month notice period, but the trust has asked Impax to waive some or all of this period in line with the FCA’s Consumer Duty.
Over the past 12 months under Impax’s tenure, the strategy has delivered a 10.3% total return for investors. However, this gets slightly worse over medium-term timeframes, with the strategy having lost investors 8% over the past five years, according to FE fundinfo data.
The current board was appointed in June, following an exit tender offer that left US activist investor Saba Capital as the controlling stake in the company. Following this, all five incumbent directors of IEM’s board were replaced by Saba’s four nominees – Caroline Bault, Steven Grey, Jason Chen and Aaron Morris.
See also: ‘The outcome has unfolded exactly as anticipated’: Saba takes control of IEM
The board said that it is commencing a ‘fair and transparent request for proposal” to identify a suitable new investment manager or strategy and will consider the viewpoint of all stakeholders. It added it will appoint advisors to help facilitate this process soon.
Richard Williams, senior analyst at QuotedData, said the news came as “little surprise”, following the appointment of the new board.
“We wait to see whether, as many suspect, Saba will be elected as manager,” he added. “It will be unprecedented if it is.”
