Coty, the privately owned beauty company, has lined up financing commitments of $14bn to fund its $10bn unsolicited takeover bid of Avon, strengthening its hand in the battle for the door-to-door cosmetics seller. Speaking on a conference call to hundreds of Avon shareholders, Bart Becht, chairman of Coty, urged investors to persuade the Avon board to engage in discussions. "For shareholders, this week is the time to act and express their opinion to the Avon board," he said. Call today and convince them to engage with us so we can ... give you our best price. Avon has rebuffed the smaller Coty, calling the approach "opportunistic" and the $23.25 a share offer inadequate. It strengthened its defences last week by announcing the appointment of Sheri McCoy, a former Johnson & Johnson executive, as its new chief executive, underlining its determination to stay independent. But Mr Becht, the former head of Reckitt Benckiser who is leading the bid as Coty's chairman, raised the stakes by unveiling funding for the bid, which will require $4bn of debt refinancing on top of the $10bn equity value. He said the group had more than $5bn in equity commitments - although he stopped short of revealing who was supplementing money put up by Joh A Benckiser, the family holding company that owns Coty - and a letter from JPMorgan Securities pledging $9bn in debt The conference call, organised by independent research house Bernstein Research, followed a further letter to Avon in which it said it would not increase the price without access to its books, promising to devote "no more than a couple of weeks" to confidential discussions. Mr Becht wrote to Andrea Jung, Avon's chairman: "Without being invited to complete due diligence, we have no way of knowing the best price we can ultimately pay to Avon shareholders." Mr Becht warned shareholders that Coty would not wait forever and that, when it quit the table, so would the takeover premium - the pre-bid three month average share price was around $18. He added that Avon had a fiduciary duty to engage in discussions, but reiterated that Coty would not go hostile given the extent of legal and operational issues facing the company. These, along with synergies, could only be evaluated following due diligence, he said.