Is Tri-Continental Closed-End Fund's Discount In Jeopardy? (CEFs: TY, SBF)

Arthur Lipson filed on Friday that he has nominated a slate of directors for election at the next annual meeting of Tri-Continental Corporation (TY), with the intention that they will take steps to decrease the fund’s discount to NAV. I would assume that open-ending the fund will be under strong consideration if they are elected.

At this point it is hard to predict how the election will turn out. TY is a large fund, and activist shareholders don’t appear to have really big positions in it, but Lipson was one of the shareholders who had a recent victory in getting the Board of the Salomon Brothers Fund (SBF) to propose open-ending. TY has a lot of similarities with SBF, and has been trading at a double-digit discount for a long time. So I think the chances of Arthur Lipson’s nominees getting elected is much higher than it would have been in years past.

TY 1-yr chart:

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