The board of Alliance Trust has made significant changes over recent years to the way in which the trust is managed, the company's broker JP Morgan Cazenove has said.
The board of the £3 billion investment trust is opposing calls from Elliott Advisors to appoint three new non-executive directors to its ranks.
In a note to clients analysts at JP Morgan Cazenove said at a recent meeting the chairman of the trust, Karin Forseke, gave a detailed description of the "exhaustive and time consuming" process involved in appointing new board members.
The analysts said: "It was far more robust and thorough than we had appreciated and as a result, we can now better understand why it would [have] so strongly objected to the process under which the nominated directors have been selected."
Elliott is urging the trust's shareholders, through individual letters and an "ImproveAllianceTrust" website, to back the election of the additional directors at the annual meeting on April 29.
Last week Ms Forseke said the board believes the action is about more than the appointment of directors and that Elliott has plans for disruptive actions.
Elliott has said it wants to put the directors on the board to improve performance and offer a fresh perspective.
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