U.S. hedge fund Elliot Associates made its last pitch to shareholders of Samsung C&T Corp. on Wednesday to vote against the firm's merger with another key unit of Samsung Group, South Korea's top conglomerate.

The call came two days before Samsung C&T shareholders are slated to meet to cast ballots on a takeover offer by Cheil Industries Inc., the de facto holding firm of South Korea's top conglomerate.

Elliott, the third-largest shareholder of Samsung C&T with a 7.12 percent stake, has been seeking to block the 8.9 trillion-won ($7.79 billion) all-stock merger, calling it a low-ball deal.

In its latest statement, Elliott once again asked shareholders of Samsung C&T, the building and trading arm of Samsung, to stop the "wholly unfair" merger from proceeding to protect the value of their investments. 

"(Whether) retail or institutional shareholders, NPS pensioners or mutual fund investors, (we urge) all shareholders to act now so that they are not railroaded into swapping their undervalued shares in Samsung C&T for Cheil Industries shares," Elliot said in a statement.

The statement came a day after the builder went on a massive media campaign to persuade shareholders in support for the merger ahead of the crucial shareholder meeting.

On Tuesday, nearly every South Korean newspaper ran an ad by the Samsung unit on the front page, which came in the form of a statement wooing C&T shareholders to side with Samsung.

Apparently referring to the ad blitz, Elliott said it was "an international and rather desperate campaign to downplay Samsung C&T's future equity value."

To push through the merger, Samsung needs approval from shareholders with two-thirds of the voting rights and a third of outstanding shares.

Following a regular executive meeting earlier Wednesday, Kim Shin, the head of Samsung C&T's trading division, told reporters that the company expects the attendance to be higher than the 65 percent it had initially anticipated.

He said he was grateful for the overwhelming support from many shareholders after the ads were run and promised again to run a merged entity in a way to boost shareholder value in the long term.

"Every vote is important for us," said Kim. "I strongly hope that (shareholders) will support us." (Yonhap)