The boss of private-equity group 3i today admitted he has no idea why activist investor Ed Bramson keeps buying his company’s shares.
Bramson’s Sherborne Investors, which overhauls underperforming companies, has built a 4.9% stake in 3i but has so far remained silent about its intentions.
“He has not given any indication of what he is doing,” Simon Borrows said. “He refers to us as a target company, but over and above that we are clueless as to what he is up to because he hasn’t communicated that to us at all.”
Borrows comments came as 3i, which owns companies such as retailer Hobbs — whose clothes are worn by the Duchess of Cambridge, pictured — beat its £40 million cost saving target by 28% last year. It plans a further £60 million in savings by next March.
3i said that net asset value per share, a key measure for valuing its portfolio of companies, was 311p, an 11.5% year-on-year rise. The group sold private-equity assets worth £606 million in 2012, down from £771 million the year before.
