On January 19, Bantleon AG's stake in GAM fell below 5 percent to 6,771,947 shares, corresponding to a holding of 4.24 percent, according to a statement from GAM Thursday. 

In October of last year, another threshold was crossed when Bantleon cut its holdings below 10 percent of outstanding shares to 9.41 percent, amounting to 15,027,352 shares.

Yesterday, the long-suffering Swiss asset manager said it expects to post an adjusted pre-tax loss of around 42.8 million Swiss francs ($46.3 million) for 2022, compared to a 2021 loss of 9.6 billion francs. The net loss is seen at 309.9 million francs, up from a loss of 23.3 million francs in 2021, after first-half results had already shown a net loss of 275.2 million francs.

Takeover Rumors

GAM has been the subject of takeover or sale rumors for some time. Earlier this month, the topic of GAM came up in a finews.ch interview with Bantleon CEO Stephan Kuhnke.

Bantleon does have a portfolio of acquisition targets with which it is interested and with whom the firm is in contact. GAM, however, is not among them.

«GAM is more of a financial investment for us at the moment. A takeover is not a current topic,» Kuhnke said.

Today's announcement is obligatory under the listing rules of the SIX exchange.