Ex-director Tim Ingram piles pressure on Alliance Trust chief executive
Alliance Trust’s board is failing to scrutinise the management, and non-executives who try to ask questions are eased out, ex-director Tim Ingram told CityAM yesterday.
Ingram is backing activist investor Elliott Advisors’ bid to put three new directors on Alliance’s board, in the hope of shaking up the investment firm’s strategy.
Ingram believes that Alliance’s returns would improve if it started to outsource some of its fund management to “best in class” managers. He said he made this point as a director from 2010 to 2012, but was ignored. “When I was on the board, I was a lone voice trying to get the strategy looked at. That is probably why I was eased off the board,” he told CityAM “With another director, the same thing happened. And then with a third director.”
He is levelling some blame at chair Karin Forseke and chief exec Katherine Garrett-Cox, arguing they should not stay unless they show they are running the firm in the interests of shareholders.
Meanwhile, Alliance Trust’s broker JP Morgan said the board was prepared to meet Elliott’s three nominees for the board.