Candover Investments, the European buy-out vehicle of private equity firm Candover, saw the value of its portfolio of unlisted shares rise by a net £11m (€18m) in 2001, a 6% increase over the year.

The £11m net increase in value was almost half that of the previous year's. The worth of most of its unlisted investments went up during 2001, but the firm had to slash the value of some of them by £12m. But the net increase compares favourably with the UK public equity market, which fell 15%.