Laxey Partners

As Alliance Trust reaches an uneasy truce with activist investor Elliott Advisors, Investment Week looks at previous attempts at boardroom coups, and how they ended.

Reinventing 'the FTSE's most boring company'

Aggressive activist investors can be good for trusts - up to a point.

TRUSTS

ACTIVISTS

ITs

Activist investor Laxey Partners has reignited its long-running feud with Alliance Trust, urging it to hand over the management of its assets to a third party.

Alliance Trust chief executive Katherine Garrett-Cox has admitted the company needs to drive up demand for its shares in order to reduce its discount.

Investment trust analysts have warned arbitrage activity will be rife in 2012 and could lead to a number of wind-ups in the sector this year.

Alliance Trust has reported a total shareholder return of 3.1% for the six months to the end of July, even as revenue and pre-tax profits dipped sharply.