Alliance Trust is urging its 60,000 shareholders to vote against the election of three new directors to its board, claiming it would be the "thin end of the wedge" and appealing to the trust's "rich history".

In its circular to shareholders, responding to the requisition notice by 12 per cent shareholder Elliott Advisors proposing the new directors, Alliance says

Elliott is "an affiliate of a US-based hedge fund manager with a controversial track record and a number of recent regulatory sanctions". It says in the UK, Elliott has had "limited success in recent disruptive campaigns against public companies, such as Morrisons Supermarkets and National Express".

It has also repeated its claim from last week that Elliott has proposed a tender offer for 40 per cent of the shares - which Elliott denied last week as it published all correspondence between the parties. Alliance said the proposal had been made "in previous meetings with us, and as recently as last year".

Karin Forseke, chairman, said the board had been "extensively renewed since my appointment and takes corporate governance matters extremely seriously". She commented: "The board is firm in its belief that this is about more than the nomination of directors and that Elliott has plans for disruptive actions that are at odds with the interests of other shareholders. The directors proposed by Elliott, who have been identified on its instruction, cannot be considered to be independent and we believe their addition to the board would allow Elliott to pursue its own agenda and engineer a quick exit from its shareholding.

"Alliance Trust is a company with a rich history and for whom the future prospects are bright. We are asking our investors to stand behind us, as they have before, to protect their company so we can continue to deploy our differentiated strategy and deliver strong returns for all shareholders for generations to come."