Liontrust Asset Management said that its offer to buy troubled Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG is final and won’t be raised, days after a rival investor group led by French billionaire Xavier Niel launched a partial public tender.
(Bloomberg) — Liontrust Asset Management said that its offer to buy troubled Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG is final and won’t be raised, days after a rival investor group led by French billionaire Xavier Niel launched a partial public tender.
London-based Liontrust said in a statement Friday that it’s conducted “extensive and co-operative due diligence in relation to GAM, over many months, which validates Liontrust’s view that this is a good and fair offer to GAM shareholders.”
GAM’s decision to sell itself to Liontrust for the equivalent of 107 million Swiss francs ($124 million) has drawn opposition from some of its investors. Niel’s NewGAMe SA and Bruellan investor group, which says Liontrust’s bid undervalues GAM, just this week announced a cash offer of 0.55 Swiss franc per share in cash for as many as 28 million GAM shares.
GAM’s third-largest investor GEM has also rejected Liontrust’s offer, Bloomberg News reported last week. But GAM’s largest investor Silchester earlier this month expressed support and said it will tender its shares representing about 17.3% of GAM’s share capital.
Shares in Liontrust fell 0.5% as of 9:10 a.m. in London on Friday.
“It is imperative that the future of GAM is resolved as quickly as possible to provide immediate financial and corporate stability for GAM to preserve value for shareholders and give certainty to clients,” Liontrust said in the statement.
Liontrust’s offer is expected to conclude on July 25, and the final results are expected to be published on or about July 31. The completion of the transaction is currently expected to take place in the fourth quarter.
–With assistance from Loukia Gyftopoulou.
(Updates with shares in fifth paragraph.)
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