* Extra shareholder payout to take FY dividend to 20p/share
* Private equity divestments of 528 mln pounds in first half
* Investment pipeline still not robust - CEO
* Shares down 3.5 percent
By Kylie MacLellan
LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - British private equity company 3iGroup Plc has no immediate plans to raise a new funddespite a turnaround in its business since a leadership changelast year, preferring to give its team longer to provethemselves to investors first.
The owner of women's fashion chain Hobbs and Tommee Tippeebaby bottle maker Mayborn has spent the last 18 monthsrestructuring after shareholders criticised its poor share priceperformance and weak results from its buyout business.
"We obviously are focused on when is the appropriate time tolaunch a new private equity fund ... it is not something that isgoing to happen in this financial year or even in the nextfinancial year," Chief Executive Simon Borrows told reportersafter the company announced its interim results.
3i last raised a pan-European fund in 2006.
Borrows, a former investment banker who replaced MichaelQueen last year, said the company was talking to investors butfelt it needed to give its current private equity team longer toshow evidence of a good run of investments and divestments.
"I feel we need a period where this current private equityteam ... need to make investments, manage investments, and exitinvestments," Borrows said.
"They came together at the end of 2010, so they reallystarted to do this in 2011 and I think we need a little longerfor them to evidence the progress under their own speed."
3i said it had generated proceeds of 528 million pounds($844.3 million) from private equity divestments in the sixmonths to Sept. 30, including from the sale of Norwegian-basedXellia Pharmaceuticals and UK software provider Civica.
As a result of meeting its goal for gearing of less than 20percent and gross debt below 1 billion pounds, 3i is going aheadwith plans announced earlier in the year to boost shareholderpayouts with a special dividend.
It said it would pay 20 pence per share for the year toMarch 2014, including an annual base dividend of 8.1p.
ASSET VALUE
3i said its net asset value per share, a key measure forvaluing its portfolio, had increased to 322p from 311p sixmonths earlier, but analysts said this was below estimates.
Shares in 3i, which have almost doubled since Borrows tookover and which hit a three-month high of 384.6p earlier thismonth, were down 3.5 percent at 358p by 0823 GMT. Over the past12 months the stock has gained 70 percent against a 16 percentrise in the FTSE 100 index.
Activist investor Edward Bramson's Sherborne Investors, which built a 5 percent stake in 3i earlier in theyear, on Wednesday said it no longer had any exposure to thecompany after seeing better opportunities elsewhere.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Philip Middleton saidthis was good news for 3i. "To our knowledge Sherborne had noinput into 3i's strategy but represented a potential stockoverhang," he said.
Borrows said the company did not expect to be as busy withdivestments in the second half of the year, and while theinvestment outlook had picked up, with three investments madesince the end of September, it was still challenging.
"The pipeline is better, it is more interesting, but it isstill not what would I would call a robust pipeline," he said."The volumes in mergers and acquisitions in Europe are stillquite depressed."