Growth capital

3i is the world’s leading growth investor.

Our Growth Capital team provides financial and strategic support to established businesses with the potential for outstanding value growth.

Typically we invest up to $250m in businesses with with an enterprise value of up to and around $500m. We make both minority and change of control investments to help to help businesses achieve growth ambitions, restructure shareholdings, provide liquidity or change the balance of equity to debt. We can be very flexible around how we structure our investments.

As an active partner:
It is your business to run. Our role is to support, advise, and provide insights and access to contacts around the world.

As a shareholder:
Your interests are the same as ours - growth, value creation and sustainable success.

Our role is to provide funding solutions that work for business owners and strategic resources that can help entrepreneurs deliver a strong value creation agenda. The day-to-day business operations are left in the hands of the management team.

Our wealth of experience enables us to:

Deliver growth by:

Introducing customers and suppliers
Applying specific sector-focused expertise
Introducing and providing support and advice when deciding on acquisitions
Delivering international expansion plans using our network

Build improved capabilities through:

Introducing the appropriate management expertise
Enabling management succession
Advising on improving financial controls and outsourcing non-core activities
Helping a business run an effective board

Plan and achieve the best exit by:

Preparing and strategically positioning company assets
Insisting on high quality and transparent information
Professionalizing – pensions, legal issues, IPR and tax
Seeking mutual agreement on exit timing

Each business we partner with will typically have:

An enterprise value in the range of $50m-$1.5bn
A management team of proven ability
A distinct position in the market and clear prospects for growth

There are several ways in which businesses use our investment funding and executive resources, including:

Supporting growth - often by entering new geographies, building production capacity or making strategic acquisitions,
Restructuring shareholdings – to pass the business from one generation to the next, enabling the departure of a major shareholder or preparing it for a public listing,
Providing liquidity – where owners can unlock the equity they have built up over time by exchanging a portion of shareholding for cash while allowing them to remain a significant shareholder,
Changing the balance of debt and equity - to pursue market opportunities that might otherwise be unobtainable because of high levels of borrowing.

We invest from our own balance sheet. This enables us to invest for the longer term and adapt to changes in the business and market dynamics when required. Each investment we make will have a clear value-growth plan and a mutually agreed upon exit strategy.