3i

Simon Borrows chairs the executive committee as CEO. Peter Grosch leads the Private Equity practice and Scott Moseley heads Infrastructure. The firm’s deliberately lean structure centralizes major decisions within a small London-based committee rather than across a regional partnership network, a model Borrows installed after his 2012 restructuring.

Action, the European discount retailer 3i first backed in 2011, has grown into the dominant driver of net asset value. In the firm’s May 2024 annual report, Action accounted for roughly 77% of gross investment return for the fiscal year. That concentration risk is the central debate around 3i’s public market valuation.

Yes. As a London-listed investment company, 3i co-invests its own capital into the same private equity and infrastructure vehicles it manages for third-party LPs. This alignment mechanism has historically given the firm a lower fee burden relative to pure managers and generated substantial shareholder carry from the Action revaluation.

The firm invests predominantly in Northern Europe and North America. Since the post-2012 restructuring, 3i closed several peripheral international offices and now operates a concentrated network centered on London with deal teams targeting the UK, the Nordics, Benelux, Germany, and the US markets.

Infrastructure at 3i focuses on core, regulated-style assets—energy transition platforms, transport networks, and utilities—with long holding periods and yield-oriented returns. The Private Equity arm targets buyout and growth equity in mid-market industrials, healthcare, and consumer companies where 3i can drive operational change over a typical five-to-seven-year hold.