A rebel group of investors has offered Gam an alternative loan facility in the event that the acquisition by Liontrust is unsuccessful.
This morning (August 18) NewGAMe and Bruellan, which controls almost 10 per cent of Gam’s shares announced the move.
The group has written to Gam’s board of directors with the offer of short-term funding by Rock Investment SAS or its parent company NJJ Holding SAS.
It said the total account would match Liontrust loans of around SFr 20mn (£17.8mn) and said it would be an arm's length transaction.
Albert Saporta, NewGAMe director, said: “Today’s actions continue to show that NewGAMe has a serious and credible plan for Gam and is ready to commit significant funding to ensure the company stays the course.
“Evidently, none of this would have happened if Gam and Liontrust had let the Liontrust offer fail instead of dragging the process and playing with deadlines to avoid the inevitable reckoning with shareholders.
“We also expect that Gam's board will now work with us to ensure we can begin to turn the company around as soon as possible.”
NewGAMe added that the loans would be available at “very short notice” if the Liontrust deal turned out to be unsuccessful.
The group said it also has plans to increase its sharehold of Gam by entering into an equity swaps with a financial counterparty which it claims would be equivalent to 4.75 per cent of of the share capital.
On August 14, Gam cancelled its extraordinary general meeting blaming a "vexatious use of shareholder rights".
It came after NewGAMe withdrew its proposals from the meeting, meaning it would have gone ahead with an empty agenda.
Liontrust's offer period closes on August 23 after the deadline was extended three times.
tara.o'connor@ft.com
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