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Shareholders in Swiss asset manager reject deal company had said was essential

Shareholders in struggling Swiss asset manager GAM have rejected a takeover offer from UK rival Liontrust, forcing it to enter discussions with an activist investor group as it tries to stay afloat.

Some 33.5 per cent of GAM shareholders voted for the takeover, which the company had previously said was essential “to continue as a going concern”.

The collapse of the deal calls into question the future of GAM: its share price has crashed 95 per cent since 2018 after its involvement in the Greensill scandal led to a fine by regulators and the removal of one of its star managers.

GAM said it was now in talks with the activist group — which is led by French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel and includes wealth management company Bruellan — focusing on short-term bridge financing that the group had previously offered.

Part of the Liontrust offer was a £17.8mn loan to GAM, half of which has already been drawn down. The loan was contingent on the takeover going through, and will now be terminated at the end of the year.

The activist group — which says it owns 9.6 per cent of GAM shares — said the Liontrust proposal significantly undervalued the company and the potential value that a turnaround could generate for shareholders. They have offered to buy 17.5 per cent of the company at SFr0.55 a share.

Liontrust’s offer was 0.06 of its own shares for each share in GAM, which closed yesterday at SFr0.45 ($0.51).

GAM’s board had previously said the Liontrust offer was the “only viable option” for the group.

David Jacob, chair of GAM, said: “The GAM board acknowledges that the majority of our shareholders have not found the Liontrust offer compelling. I am pleased that we have entered constructive and productive discussions with [the activist group] and that these discussions continue at speed.”

John Ions, chief executive of Liontrust said: “We are disappointed we did not win the support of the majority of GAM’s shareholders and are grateful to those . . . shareholders who did back our offer.”

The five Brics nations have invited Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join their emerging-market group, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.

The countries will join the Brics bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa at the start of next year as the “first phase of the expansion process” for the forum, Ramaphosa said at the end of the summit of Brics leaders in Johannesburg.

“We value the interest of other countries in building a partnership with Brics” and other expansions will follow in the future after the core countries agree on criteria for membership, he added.

The first expansion of the Brics since South Africa joined in 2010 will represent a victory for China, which pushed for rapid expansion of the grouping before the summit in order to craft a bigger rival to the G7 of advanced economies.

The inclusion of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer outside the US, among the first Middle Eastern Brics members also follows Beijing’s brokering of the normalisation of relations between Riyadh and Tehran this year.

India was more reluctant about expanding Brics, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled his backing for new members on the basis of consensus on Wednesday.

The six new nations include some of New Delhi’s own strategic defence partners, such as the UAE and Egypt. “Adding new members will further strengthen Brics and give it a new impetus,” Modi said.

The new members will increase the Brics share of global gross domestic product from 32 per cent to 37 per cent on a purchasing power parity basis, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said.

The retail emporium, billed as mold-breaking, is slated to open in March at 35-37 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois.

EXPERIENCE MATTERS: Dover Street Market, gearing up to open its long-awaited Paris branch in March, has tapped Italian retail legend Carla Sozzani for an assist, WWD has learned.

Sozzani attended Dover Street Market on select buying appointments during the June and July designer markets in Milan and Paris, leveraging her extensive industry relationships and keen fashion instincts, according to sources.

It is understood that Adrian Joffe, chief executive officer of Dover Street Market, plans to collaborate with an array of guest talents, including buyers, as he and Rei Kawakubo map out a new concept for Dover Street Market at 35-37 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois in the Marais district.

The grand 17th-century town house at that address has been operating for two years as a cultural center, hosting a freewheeling mix of exhibitions, happenings, musical performances, brand installations and retail spaces.

Joffe and Kawakubo are guarding details about the Paris outpost, which will coincide with Dover Street Market’s 20th anniversary, but have hinted they are recontextualizing the retail emporium.

“It’ll be a new kind of Dover Street,” Joffe told WWD last April. Paris will become the seventh Dover Street Market after London, Los Angeles, New York, Singapore, Beijing and Tokyo.

Sozzani is known as a pioneer in concept stores: She is the founder of 10 Corso Como in Milan, a destination that blends fashion, cuisine, art, music, design and lifestyle. She is no longer affiliated with the retailer, now controlled by Tiziana Fausti.

Sozzani and Kawakubo go back a long way: They opened a 10 Corso Como-Comme des Garçons store in Tokyo as a partnership in 2002 (it has since closed).

The Italian entrepreneur is also president of the Azzedine Alaïa Foundation, which exhibits the work of the late Tunisian couturier and art from his personal collection, and president of Fondazione Sozzani, founded in 2016 with the goal to promote the arts and culture with exhibits and events.

Why landing in this lunar region—as India has done—is so challenging

India became the first country to land at the moon’s south pole—a logistically challenging achievement expected to kick off a new era of space exploration. It joins the U.S., China and Russia in successfully pulling off an uncrewed lunar landing.

The presence of water ice has made the moon’s south pole an area of intense interest for space scientists and engineers, but the difficulty of landing on this part of the moon has made it an elusive goal until now.

Water there potentially could be used for drinking, cooling equipment and producing oxygen at future lunar bases. The water also could be refined into rocket fuel to one day power missions to other parts of the solar system like Mars, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The Indian Space Research Organization landed a research device as part of its Chandrayaan-3 mission near the lunar south pole on Aug. 23, equipped with monitors for studying seismic activity and carrying out other research. A rover with two different sensors was stored inside the lander.

The U.S. company Intuitive Machines, with its IM-1 mission, also plans to land a device near the region. IM-1 could start in mid-November with a rocket launch.

India's mission was designed to test its ability to softly land a device at the lunar south pole and deploy scientific instruments for research. An upcoming mission from a U.S. company has similar goals.

Russia’s Luna-25 mission would have been the first to touch down at the moon’s south pole, but Russian officials said the vehicle crashed on Aug. 20.

Uncrewed lunar landings are no easy feat. The moon’s almost nonexistent atmosphere makes it harder to slow a descending spacecraft as it approaches the lunar surface. Landers use onboard engines that allow them to lower their altitudes and softly touch down. That is what India pulled off at the south pole, going from a “rough braking” period during the descent to “fine braking” before the landing.

Such an operation—and any necessary maneuvers on the way down—requires fuel, which can run out. A private Japanese moon-landing mission failed earlier this year after the craft ran out of fuel.

Landing on the lunar south pole is tougher than on other parts of the moon. There, the sun always sits close to the horizon, its light shining on the surface at an oblique angle.

Towering terrain and deep craters create a shadowy environment that can make it harder to distinguish surface features when attempting a landing. The director of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, had put the likelihood of a successful Luna-25 landing at the south pole at 70%.

Some of the water on the moon has been found embedded in microscopic glass beads, according to a March paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The beads—which range in size from a few tens of micrometers to a few millimeters—could hold up to 71 trillion gallons of water, the study’s authors estimate.

Threat of walkouts at liquefied natural gas plants had raised supply concerns ahead of Northern Hemisphere winter

SYDNEY—Woodside Energy reached a preliminary deal with disaffected workers at some of its natural gas export facilities in Australia, a move that could head off a walkout that risked disrupting global gas supply and jolting worldwide energy prices.

Workers at three Woodside WDS 0.08%increase; green up pointing triangle-operated offshore liquefied natural gas platforms had threatened to strike over issues including pay after the Australian company and union officials had failed to find common ground after months of talks.

Worries about strikes at one of the world’s major LNG exporters had stoked volatility in natural-gas prices as European countries prepare for their second winter since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted traditional energy markets.

Woodside and union representatives reached agreement on a collective deal in the early hours of Thursday following a 15-hour meeting at the company’s headquarters in the Western Australian city of Perth. Members will now decide whether to endorse the deal and won’t strike while the agreement is being ratified, said Offshore Alliance, a partnership between two local unions.

The agreement should ease concerns of a sudden drop in LNG exports from Australia, which rivals Qatar as the largest exporter of the supercooled fuel. The labor dispute in Australia reverberated through global markets amid worries that European and Asian buyers could be pushed into a bidding war for gas from elsewhere, including from the U.S.

“Europe, and global LNG markets, are inevitably more exposed to global LNG supply and demand shocks as the flexibility historically provided by Russian gas supply to Europe is gone for good,” said ​​Massimo ​Di Odoardo, ​head of ​global ​gas ​analysis at Wood Mackenzie. The Woodside plants, and others operated by Chevron in Australia, account for more than 10% of global LNG supply combined, he said.

Workers at the Chevron-operated LNG facilities are still seeking a similar agreement and are due to return ballots on potential strike action over coming days. The U.S. energy giant is proposing a collective agreement for workers at its Gorgon and Wheatstone onshore facilities that falls short of workers’ demands, Offshore Alliance spokesman Brad Gandy said Thursday.

“The Alliance will be strongly recommending to members to vote no to these non-union Chevron agreements,” Gandy said.

A Chevron spokesman said that the company was committed to bargaining in good faith for an outcome that benefits all parties.

Should workers reject deals agreed to by unions and decide to strike, Asia is most at risk of having contracted LNG supply choked off, analysts say. Most gas supply from Australia—which rivals Qatar as the world’s biggest LNG exporter—is typically destined for Japan and China. High inventories have eased some concerns, analysts at ANZ Bank said recently.

European nations have been stockpiling gas in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the crippling price spikes seen last winter and the European Union’s gas-storage levels are on the cusp of reaching their pre-winter target more than two months early. In June last year, the bloc established new rules that tasked member states with filling gas-storage facilities to at least 90% of their capacity by Nov. 1 each year, starting in 2023.

Despite rising recently, prices in Europe are still far lower than their record highs from just under a year ago, when Moscow first slashed natural-gas flows.

Under Australian employment law, workers can stop work within 30 days of such a vote providing they give employers seven days’ notice. Industrial action could include a range of work bans, such as refusing to load tankers or vessels with LNG, or a walkout, according to Offshore Alliance. A spokeswoman for Woodside, Australia’s seventh-largest company by market capitalization, said the company had not received any notice of strike action and would work toward finalizing the agreement.