By Ian Walker
Liontrust Asset Management expects to declare its offer for Zurich-listed investment manager GAM Holding as unsuccessful next Tuesday after preliminary figures showed that it has failed to get the minimum acceptance level required for it to proceed.
The U.K. sustainability-focused investment manager said Thursday that based on preliminary data, it has received acceptances of more than 53.25 million GAM shares, or 33.45% to which the offer relates.
“We are disappointed we did not win the support of the majority of GAM’s shareholders and are grateful to those GAM and Liontrust shareholders who did back our offer,” Chief Executive John Ions said.
The company said that it expects to book exceptional costs of no more than 11 million pounds ($14 million) in its accounts related to the offer.
Liontrust added that its dividend policy remains unchanged and that it continues to target a payout of at least 72 pence a share for the year ending March 31.
Liontrust announced the public exchange offer in May, under which it offered 0.0589 shares for each GAM share owned.
Subsequently, on July 18 NewGAMe and Bruellan–who believed the Liontrust deal undervalued GAM–launched their own offer to buy 28 million GAM shares at 0.55 Swiss Francs (63 U.S. cents) a share. The price was a 30% premium to GAM’s closing price of CHF0.42 the day before.
NewGAMe is a company controlled by the subsidiary of a holding company of French billionaire Xavier Niel, while Bruellan is an independent wealth manager.
Write to Ian Walker at [email protected]
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