Candover Investments has suffered a ten per cent drop in its NAV per share as the listed investor works to return cash to its shareholders in an unforgiving  seller's market. 

The 75p per share decline resulted from portfolio writedowns, adverse currency movements and ongoing business costs. 

The firm's portfolio has ebbed as trading at Spanish theme park operator Parques Reunidos and photonics developer Qioptiq saw their revenues drop in the six months to June end. Dutch oil and gas services firm Stork was also written down on a mark-to-market basis. 

Candover managed to cut overheads and pushed its net debt down from £38m (€47.9m) at the end of last year to £16.5m, but it has not been enough to keep investors on side. 

Candover is down nearly 2.5 per cent this morning, selling for 354p at the time of writing, compared to its 642p fair value per share. 

The fund investor had outstanding commitments of £13.9m to the Candover 2005 fund at the end of June, but £8m of that was drawn in August to help fund a debt restructuring with Stork's lenders. 

The FTSE firm decided to put its portfolio into run-off after it defaulted on a €1bn commitment to Candover Partners' €3bn flagship fund in 2009.

Hopes of a possible takeover spearheaded by Canadian pension fund Alberta Investment Management Corporation last summer were later dashed, leaving the trust to concentrate on its existing portfolio. 

Arle Capital Partners emerged from the remnants of Candover Partners in a spin-out backed by fund of funds and secondaries specialist Pantheon in Deember 2010. 

The new-look team took a £70m strip of Candover Investments' portfolio for £60m and continues to manage the LP's existing investments, as it looks to maximise returns before attempting to raise its first fund proper. 

So far this year Arle has pulled off exits in a difficult market – carving out the cables business of oil and gas firm Expro to Siemens for nearly £400m and Capital Safety Group to KKR for $1.1bn (€877m). 

But there have been casualties too. Arle attempted to keep ahold of EurotaxGlass, a provider of automotive intelligence, by offering fresh equity to lenders as they set about restructuring its €355m debt obligation in April. EurotaxGlass has been removed from Arle's website and its value has been annulled in Candover's latest results.