The boss of Britain’s oldest private-equity group today admitted he was glad to see the back of corporate raider Ed Bramson.
Simon Borrows, chief executive of 3i, said Bramson’s 5% investment in the group earlier this year had been a “complete mystery” because he didn’t reveal his plans at any point. Bramson’s Sherborne Investors, which overhauled F&C Asset Management in 2011, offloaded its stake in 3i yesterday having made a 38% return on its money.
“I found it hard to understand what it was all about because we’d already started our turnaround programme before Sherborne invested,” Borrows said. “It was a distraction in some ways because we’d get asked about him by our LPs [investors] but it didn’t affect our strategy. He made a good return from 3i and we now expect him to move on to a new target, whatever that may be.”
3i, which owns fashion chain Hobbs, said its net asset value stood at 322p at the end of September, compared with 311p in March. It will pay a special dividend of 4p on top of an interim dividend of 2.7p.
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