LONDON, April 2, 2026, 17:18 BST
3i Group plc shares rose again on Thursday, clawing back more ground after last week’s Action-led slump. The stock ended up 3.99% at 2,687 pence after a 5.99% rise on Wednesday, though it still sits roughly 40% below its October high. 1
The move matters because investors have been rapidly re-pricing the FTSE 100 private-equity group after a sharp shift in how the market values it. Industry data showed 3i lost 26.6% in March and stood at a near 20% discount to net asset value, the estimated worth of its holdings, on March 31. That compared with an average 37% premium over the prior year, when the shares mostly traded above the portfolio’s value; peer HgCapital Trust ended the quarter on a 30.7% discount. 2
The story still runs through one asset. 3i’s January update showed Action, the Dutch discount retailer that underpins much of the group’s growth case, was valued at £22.38 billion at the end of December, and 3i said a January deal with GIC would lift its ownership to 65.3%. 3
Fresh filings this week did not change the operating picture, but they did show some buying from inside the firm. Peter Wirtz bought 25,000 shares on March 30 for £584,722.50, filings showed. Separate notices said 1,411 new shares were admitted under 3i’s incentive plan, taking total voting rights to 1,024,702,777, and that the company had no holdings caught by a technical UK listed-funds disclosure rule. 4
At its March 26 seminar, 3i said Action generated 2025 sales of 16 billion euros and operating EBITDA, a measure of operating cash earnings, of 2.367 billion euros. First-12-week 2026 sales rose 14.5%, but like-for-like sales, which strip out newly opened stores, slowed to 4.0%, with France at 0.9%. Action kept 2026 guidance at 4%-5% like-for-like growth, at least 400 net store openings and a 14.8% EBITDA margin, and said it aims to open its first U.S. store by end-2027 or early-2028. 5
That was enough to jar a market that had grown used to faster numbers. The stock plunged 17.6% on March 26 to more than a two-year low after 3i said Action’s 2026 like-for-like growth would likely come in broadly in line with 2025. 6
Analyst views are split, and so is the risk. Jefferies analyst Frederick Wild called the March update “reassuring” after the shares had de-rated “significantly”, but Cavendish’s Will Crighton said 3i’s old premium had looked “out of hand”, while Singer Capital Markets analyst Charles Murphy argued the real danger in the U.S. push was the senior management time it could absorb rather than the cash outlay alone. 7
For now, the rebound leaves 3i with a little breathing room, not a clean reset. The next test comes on May 14, when the company is due to report annual results for the year to March 31. 8
