Market headwinds are occupying minds at private equity group 3i (III). Significantly, management flagged market volatility and economic weakness in the eurozone as big drags on investment activity. And while healthy asset prices boosted the group's book value at the half-year stage, that also makes new investments expensive.
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Against that backdrop, 3i continues to work on costs - which fell 7 per cent year on year at the operating level - as well as on its longer-term strategy of refocusing the portfolio on the best-performing assets. The book comprised an unwieldy 487 investments back in 2008, but that's now down to 72.