ALLIANCE TRUST PLC
LSE: ATST Meeting Date: 4/29/2015
The 127-year-old FTSE 350 investment and savings business Alliance Trust plc is currently the subject of a confrontation with an activist shareholder for the second time in five years. On this occasion, Elliott Advisers, a U.S. hedge fund, wants to place three new directors on the board, arguing that the Company has consistently delivered poor investment performance while failing to reduce costs.
Such shareholder activism is extremely uncommon in the UK, but New York-based Elliott has established a fearsome reputation for such action across the world. In this case, Elliott has gone so far as to set up a website and a call centre to engage with the up to 60,000 individual investors who hold 70% of the Company’s shares.
Hostilities between the two parties continue to intensify in the lead up to the Company’s annual general meeting on April 29, with Elliott accusing the Company of misstating its costs and of not paying sufficiently large dividends; claims which the Company has rejected.
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