3i reviews managers" pay - FT.com The way in which managers at 3i are paid is being reviewed as part of the overhaul of the private equity group undertaken by Simon Borrows, its new chief executive. Announcing a £163m first-half pre-tax loss, Mr Borrows said the review was launched in the summer and was designed to ensure "a fair balance of returns between employees and shareholders." Mr Borrows said the aim was to increase the gap between the rewards taken home by 3i's best performers and their weaker counterparts, while tying the size of the overall variable compensation pool to the performance of the group. "There will be much greater variability of pay than there has been in the past," he said, adding that senior managers would get more of their pay in deferred shares to align their interests more closely with shareholders. Mr Borrows, a former banker with Greenhill & Co, took the helm of 3i in May after Michael Queen, the previous chief executive, left amid shareholder pressure over the group's disappointing performance. On Thursday, Mr Borrows said "strong and measurable" progress had been made in executing the turnround plan he unveiled in June, which involved significantly slimming the group. The number of staff it employs had fallen by 104 to 331 between the end of March and the end of September; this represents a large proportion of the more than 160 posts that Mr Borrows wants to cut by the end of March 2013. Five out of the six branch office closures that he plans have also been carried out, with the closure and sale of 3i's Birmingham outpost scheduled to be complete in early January. The £163m pre-tax loss for the six months to September 30 represented a narrowing of the £497m deficit posted a year earlier. The group produced a negative total return - a measure of changes in the value of its investments and fee income - of £5m. This compared with a negative total return of £523m a year earlier. Net asset value per share fell from 279p at the end of March to 273p at the half-year stage. On a diluted basis, NAV fell from 294p to 273p. The diluted loss per share was 17.7p, down from a loss of 52.7p. An interim dividend of 2.7p per share has been declared, unchanged from the year before. Shares in 3i were largely unchanged at 209.1p in Thursday's early trading in London. They have risen 16 per cent over the past six months in the wake of Mr Borrows" appointment.