The 11th-hour truce between Alliance Trust and Elliott Advisors came about as the investment trust realised the extent of support among shareholders for the activist investor’s campaign for change, according to market participants.

The two companies this morning said they had reached an agreement in their battle over strategy and proposed new board directors, just a day before the investment trust's annual shareholder meeting in Dundee, where the stage had been set for a showdown vote after a series of barbed exchanges between the pair.