3i, Europe's largest private equity investor, has sold Balfour, a UK convenience store chain, for £30m (€43m) after a transforming it from loss-making to profit-making in three years.

3i only invited trade buyers to bid for the 111-store business, which was sold to the Co-operative Group, after "a number of approaches". Julian Davison, a director at 3i, said: "Private equity buyers would have found it difficult to compete."