Asset Value Investors (AVI) Provides Updates on Symphony International Holdings Shareholder Campaign and Responds to Management’s Recent Letter

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Asset Value Investors publishes letter to shareholders providing an update on its on-going campaign at Symphony International Holdings (SIHL) and a response to Management’s recent letter.

AVI first called for shareholder support to remove and replace Symphony International Holdings’ Board of Directors on 29 April 2021. A copy of that letter setting out AVI’s concerns can be found here.

To date, over seventy shareholders have contacted AVI to express their frustration with the Board/Manager and support for the campaign’s objectives.

Tom Treanor, Executive Director, Asset Value Investors comments: “We made serious and, we believe, well-substantiated allegations regarding the governance of the Company and decisions taken by the Board that appeared to place the interests of the Investment Manager above those of shareholders. We went on to detail, inter alia, why the so-called “independent” directors cannot be considered anything of the sort; to analyse SIHL’s persistently wide discount to NAV and to demonstrate that it is an extreme outlier in the context of other listed investment companies; to calculate the enormous amount of value extracted from the Company by the Investment Manager at the expense of shareholder returns; to show how performance figures had been and continue to be misrepresented in official company publications; and to lay out step-by-step the ways in which we believe the Board and Investment Manager had taken improper actions to avoid the triggering of the discount-contingent wind-up vote in 2017.”

On 13 August 2021, Mr. Thadani wrote to shareholders in a letter that can be read here.

Treanor responds: “The letter is awash with disingenuous claims and contains a variety of inaccuracies and inconsistencies. In our view, it is designed to stall shareholders for as long as possible and perpetuate the status quo for management’s benefit. We will address and dissect the various statements made by Mr. Thadani in more detail at the end of our latest letter.

“Staggeringly, and despite the amount of time that has now passed, Mr Thadani’s letter fails to address essentially all of the serious - and highly detailed - allegations made in our 29 April 2021 letter. We will leave shareholders to draw their own conclusions as to why he has made no attempt to rebut them.”

The full letter to shareholders can be found here.