Saba Launches Campaign to Oust Bluerock as Manager of Deeply Discounted BPRE
The activist ties a roughly 47% discount to NAV to the fund’s conversion from an interval fund to a listed closed-end fund, and is setting up a 2027 shareholder vote on the manager’s future.
September 28, 2026
Saba Capital Management is gearing up for a proxy fight at Bluerock Private Real Estate Fund (NYSE: BPRE), launching a public campaign to remove Bluerock as the fund’s manager ahead of the fund’s 2027 annual meeting.
Saba, together with Saba Capital Master Fund and principal Boaz Weinstein, said it intends to file a definitive proxy statement and solicit proxies from BPRE shareholders for the 2027 meeting. The group may be deemed to beneficially own 7,322,660 of the fund’s common shares.
The Discount at the Center of the Fight
Saba’s case rests on the gap between BPRE’s market price and its net asset value. Citing Bloomberg data as of September 21, 2026, Saba said the fund trades 47% below NAV and that a return to NAV would amount to an 89% gain for shareholders.
The activist traces that discount directly to the fund’s change in structure:
- As an interval fund, BPRE required Bluerock to provide quarterly repurchases at NAV.
- According to Saba, Bluerock and the fund’s board recommended that shareholders vote to end that arrangement and list the shares, exchanging periodic liquidity at NAV for the ability to sell at any time.
- BPRE began trading on the NYSE in December 2025. Saba noted that Bluerock is no longer obligated to buy back shares, leaving an exchange sale as the only exit.
Saba said the fund’s last published value before listing was $24.36 per share, while buyers paid $14.70 on the first day of trading, a gap of $9.66 per share on the same underlying assets. Saba estimated the resulting shortfall at roughly $1.4 billion across all outstanding shares.
Governance and the Manager Contract
Saba also argued that Bluerock entrenched itself during the conversion through governance provisions that, in Saba’s view, effectively prevent shareholders from forcing change. Even so, the activist pointed to what it described as a path forward: shareholders can terminate Bluerock’s management contract on 60 days’ notice with the support of a majority of all outstanding shares.
Saba said closing the discount requires a manager willing to put shareholder interests first, and said it has done so in dozens of past situations. For now, the firm is steering shareholders to a campaign website to join a mailing list ahead of the 2027 vote. The soliciting material does not include a response from Bluerock.
What It Signals
Saba has built its franchise around closed-end funds trading at wide discounts, and BPRE gives it a high-profile case in the alternatives space: a former interval fund whose listing moved shareholders from NAV-based repurchases to market pricing. The campaign sets up a direct test of whether BPRE’s shareholders will back replacing the manager that recommended that transition.
