Electra urges shareholders to reject raider Ed Bramson

'His approach is extraordinary,' said Electra’s chairman Roger Yates

Electra has lit a bonfire under its battle with the New York-based raider Ed Bramson by scheduling a shareholder showdown to decide the future of the group on 5 November.

The British-born activist investor owns 29.9 per cent of private equity group and last month renewed his demands for two seats on the board.

Electra, which oversees companies such as TGI Fridays and the Original Bowling Company, told shareholders to reject Mr Bramson’s demands at the meeting, accusing him of not laying out a credible plan to improve performance and jeopardising the future of its companies.

“His approach is extraordinary,” Electra’s chairman Roger Yates said. “I would have expected anybody making so much noise to have done detailed work and I’ve seen no evidence of that. He’s paying lip service to fundamental analysis.”

Electra said the company’s performance had beaten all relative benchmarks over the long and short term, but Mr Bramson has indicated he thinks he can do better if he gets his two seats on the board, one for him and another for the former PwC chairman Ian Brindle.

Mr Bramson launched his first assault on Electra last year but lost a shareholder vote on plans to sit on the board. He subsequently increased his stake, making him the company’s top shareholder, but has yet to detail his plans for the company if he wins seats on the board.

Mr Yates would not be drawn on whether he would continue if Mr Bramson won the shareholder vote. He admitted the vote would “be much closer” than last time and said the battle with Mr Bramson would cost Electra a similar amount to the previous showdown, about £3m.

“We’ve asked them what makes you think you can do better and very depressingly we have no answer,” Mr Yates said.

Mr Bramson has launched raids on firms such as 3i and F&C Asset Management in recent years, booting out the chairman of F&C when he won a shareholder vote.

Electra Private Equity is a FTSE 250-listed vehicle separate from the fund management division of the same name but has its own independent board chaired by Mr Yates.

The company, founded in the mid-1970s, will seek to win shareholder support ahead of the vote by focusing on its strong performance track record.

It has delivered a total share price return over the past three years of 87 per cent, compared with 54 per cent for its relative FTSE 250 benchmark.

“Performance over the past year has strengthened the board’s hands,” an analyst at Deixon said. “From a fundamental point of view, this time around the onus is more clearly on [Mr Bramson’s firm] Sherborne to present its case for change.”