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Mr Sotiriou published a scathing note on Monday accusing Pendal of having a “lazy board, detached from reality”, adding the takeover bid had “placed a spotlight on the mismanagement of the business”.

Mr Sotiriou described the merger as a “good deal” for both parties.

“PDL (Pendal) had its head in the sand as its share price has more than halved,” he said. “We strongly believe PDL has been mismanaged and see PPT’s (Perpetual) management team as a stronger proposition to realising the value between the two businesses.”

Bell Potter analyst Marcus Barnard said Pendal’s board had “some difficult thinking to do”.

“Rejecting the offer outright doesn’t make strategic sense and might not be in the best interests of shareholders. Walking away, perversely might weaken management, unless they can pull exceptionally strong results out in the next year – and that looks tough given recent trading.”

Meanwhile, Tribeca Investment Partners senior portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu said Perpetual’s bid was “opportunistic”, despite it being at almost a 40 per cent premium to Pendal’s Friday share price.

Ms Liu said Pendal would likely push for a higher price and if the deal goes ahead, both parties could merge back-end operations while retaining separately managed investment teams.

“Because as you know, funds management is a people business. It’s about people and retention and the scale you provide across the board,” she said. “It’s incredibly important to keep those front end teams.”

It has been a busy time for fund manager deals, following last week’s announcement of the merger between Regal and VGI.

Pendal has appointed Macquarie Capital as its financial adviser and King & Wood Mallesons as its legal adviser as it considers the deal. Perpetual has appointed Goldman Sachs as financial adviser and Herbert Smith Freehills as legal adviser.

When Perpetual made the offer on Friday, its market capitalisation was $1.94 billion, just above Pendal’s market cap of $1.7 billion. But after the share prices moves on Monday, Pendal’s value grew by $310 million to $2 billion, while Perpetual shrunk by $128 million to $1.8 billion.

With Lucy Battersby

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