London, April 6, 2026, 17:08 BST
3i Group entered London’s Easter market shutdown having clawed back some ground from last week’s selloff, with the shares last shown at 2,687 pence after a 3.99% rise in the final trading session on April 2. The London Stock Exchange was closed on Good Friday and stayed shut on Easter Monday, leaving Thursday’s close as the latest read on investor sentiment. 1
That matters because investors are re-pricing Action before 3i’s annual results on May 14. At Dec. 31, 3i owned 62.3% of Action and its diluted net asset value, or portfolio value after liabilities, stood at 3,017 pence a share; Chief Executive Simon Borrows said in January the group was set for another strong year of compounding growth. 2
On March 26, 3i told investors that Action generated 16 billion euros of 2025 net sales and 2.367 billion euros of operating EBITDA, a common measure of operating profit. For 2026, it forecast like-for-like sales growth of 4% to 5% — sales from stores open at least a year — at least 400 net new stores and a steady 14.8% EBITDA margin, while first-12-week sales rose 14.5% to 3.7 billion euros, with France slightly below expectations. 3
The sharper shift was strategic. Action said it aims to open its first store in the southeastern United States by the end of 2027 or in early 2028, and Chief Executive Hajir Hajji said it expected to invest 350 million to 400 million euros through 2030, starting with about 20 stores across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and targeting roughly 100 U.S. stores by the end of the decade. She said the states offered a “diverse population” and many medium-sized and large towns, but Reuters noted earlier U.S. attempts by European retailers including Tesco and Marks & Spencer ended badly. 4
Investors initially balked. Reuters reported 3i shares slumped 17.6% on March 26 to a more than two-year low after the Action update, even though the chain’s 2026 same-store sales target was broadly in line with the 4.9% growth it delivered in 2025. Thursday’s 2,687 pence close clawed back part of that move, but not the damage. 5
The dependence is not new. 3i’s 2025 annual report showed value-for-money and private-label holdings made up 74% of the investment portfolio as of March 31, 2025, underlining how heavily the group leans into the consumer trade-down theme that Action embodies. 6
Still, the downside case is plain enough. QuotedData senior analyst Matthew Read said Action accounts for around 70% of 3i’s NAV, creating “huge concentration risk if things go wrong,” and warned that investors who bought the stock on a large premium had little cushion once sentiment turned. 7
That leaves execution as the next test. Charles Murphy, senior research analyst at Singer Capital Markets, said the bigger U.S. risk may be less the cash cost than the management time needed to build stores and distribution from scratch, even if success could open another stretch of growth. For investors, the next question is whether France steadies and whether Action can add the United States without losing pace in Europe. 8
