REG-BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust Plc: Portfolio Update

Blackrock Greater Europe Investment TrustAnnouncement

24/12/2025 12:15

The information contained in this release was correct as at                   
              30 November 2025                               . Information on
the Company’s up to date net asset values can be found on the London Stock
Exchange website at:

 

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-home.html
                              .           

 

 

 

BLACKROCK GREATER EUROPE INVESTMENT TRUST PLC (LEI - 5493003R8FJ6I76ZUW55)

All information is at                                  30 November 2025       
                        and unaudited.          
          
                     Performance at month end with net income reinvested      
             
           

                              One  Month  Three  Months  One  Year  Three  Years  Launch  (20 Sep 04)  
                                                                                                       
 Net asset value (undiluted)  -3.4%       2.0%           3.4%       24.3%         760.0%               
 Share price                  -3.9%       1.0%           5.3%       23.3%         721.8%               
 FTSE World Europe ex UK      0.7%        6.4%           23.8%      47.7%         562.4%               

Sources: BlackRock and Datastream                    
           

 

At month end

 Net asset value (capital only):      602.92p     
 Net asset value (including income):  604.82p     
 Share price:                         570.00p     
 Discount to NAV (including income):  5.8%        
 Net gearing:                         0.6%        
 Net yield 1 :                        1.3%        
 Total assets (including income):     £565.6m     
 Ordinary shares in issue 2 :         93,513,411  
 Ongoing charges 3 :                  0.95%       
                                                  

 

1                      Based on a an interim dividend of 1.75p per share and
a final dividend of 5.40p per share for the year ended 31 August 2025.

2                      Excluding 24,415,527 shares held in treasury.         

          3                      The Company’s ongoing charges are
calculated as a percentage of average daily net assets and using the
management fee and all other operating expenses excluding finance costs,
direct transaction costs, custody transaction charges, VAT recovered,
taxation, write back of prior year expenses and certain non-recurring items
for the year ended 31 August 2025.

 

                          
 Sector Analysis          Total Assets (%)  
 Industrials              38.0              
 Technology               17.1              
 Consumer Discretionary   16.5              
 Financials               16.1              
 Health Care              8.9               
 Basic Materials          3.7               
 Net Current Liabilities  -0.3              
                          -----             
                          100.0             
                          =====             
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                            
                                              
 Country Analysis         Total Assets (%)  
 France                   24.6              
 Switzerland              16.9              
 Netherlands              11.0              
 Germany                  9.8               
 Ireland                  5.4               
 Spain                    5.1               
 Denmark                  4.0               
 Finland                  3.7               
 United States            3.7               
 Belgium                  3.6               
 United Kingdom           3.4               
 Sweden                   2.6               
 Italy                    2.5               
 Austria                  2.1               
 Norway                   1.9               
 Net Current Liabilities  -0.3              
                          -----             
                          100.0             
                          =====             


 Top 10 holdings                 Country      Fund %  
 Safran                          France       7.0     
 Compagnie Financiere Richemont  Switzerland  5.2     
 Schneider Electric              France       5.0     
 Hermès                          France       4.7     
 SAP                             Germany      4.2     
 Belimo                          Switzerland  4.2     
 ASML                            Netherlands  4.1     
 Lonza Group                     Switzerland  4.1     
 ChemoMetec                      Denmark      4.0     
 Adyen                           Netherlands  3.8     
                                                      

 

Commenting on the markets, Stefan Gries and Brian Hall, representing the
Investment Manager noted:

                       

During the month, the company’s NAV fell by -3.4% and the share price fell
by -3.9%. For reference, the Europe ex UK market returned +0.7% during the
period.

 

Trends that have punished quality companies this year – those with high
returns on invested capital and low leverage, which are typically found in our
portfolio – accelerated through November. As the value factor rallied,
growth and quality factors underperformed, wiping out a nascent recovery. It
was hard to see what exactly caused the acceleration as the usual suspects,
such as a change in the yield curve or meaningful change in growth
expectations, were absent.

 

There was a notable pullback in shares perceived as winners connected to the
AI theme. The pressure came as data showed OpenAI’s leadership being
challenged. With the recent deals OpenAI has financed, they need to succeed
and fulfil their capex plans for the entire ecosystem to win.

 

Sector allocation effects were negative in November driven by overweight
positioning to industrials and technology.

 

After a period of recent strength, semiconductor companies in the portfolio
gave back performance on concerns of an AI bubble impacting a broad basket of
perceived winners. We, however, remain encouraged, incrementally topping up on
valuation setbacks as capex commitments and trends in foundry capacity, memory
tightness, and China imports support 2026/2027 expectations.

 

A position in Adyen detracted during the month. Adyen is a good example of the
kind of quality business, with high returns on invested capital and low
leverage, that has seen little support during this year’s rotations.
Payments has generally been a tough place as an industry where you quickly
lose relevance if you aren’t moving fast to innovate. Adyen has been on the
correct side of this and recently guided positively on 2026 revenue growth.
For the foreseeable future, they should achieve a minimum level of 20% revenue
growth and should grow profits even faster than that as they’ve slowed
hiring and the business has shown economies of scale in the past. The 2025
customer cohorts are growing much faster than previous years which is
important as the majority of Adyen growth comes from deepening wallet share
with existing customers.

 

Data centre related shares, including Schneider Electric and Belimo, were also
hit on AI bubble concerns. Schneider Electric detracted despite a reassuring
set of results at the end of October that included comments around the
opportunity for new AI entrants to support further data centre growth. Beyond
data centres, their industrial automation business beat expectations with a
strong inflection from -1% to +6% organic growth, driven by genuine recovery
from better end user demand.

 

Aerospace and Defence holdings – Safran, MTU, Thales – weighed on relative
returns as a function of a possible Russia/Ukraine peace deal. The conflict in
Ukraine generally contributes less than 5% of revenue for portfolio companies
and would not be expected to go to zero in the case of a ceasefire. The equity
market reaction in recent months has felt more like a wash out of defence
holders in baskets and the hedge fund community. There has been no change to
the investment case that we bought into - a multi-year pick up in defence
spending with European players taking share from those in the US when it comes
to European budgets. We are already seeing orders coming in well above
revenues (book to build well above 1) while single digit P/E (price to
earnings) valuations by the end of the decade do not look overstretched.

 

Richemont was the top contributor over the month, as the company released
strong H1’26 earnings. This included +17% revenue growth in their Jewellery
division, exceeding consensus expectations of +10%, and pointed towards
acceleration of trends in China and the Americas. The management team also
shared a confident message regarding demand trends on the conference call. We
believe there is upside to consensus earnings expectations over the medium
term, primarily driven by stronger than expected growth of Jewellery Maisons,
leading to a positive mix shift.

 

Outlook

 

We expect to see inflation on a continued path of normalisation, central banks
that provide easing financial conditions, a declining oil price – equivalent
to a tax cut for global consumers – as well as employment levels that remain
healthy both in the US and Europe. Adding to this, increased fiscal spend in
Europe’s largest economy in Germany and a trade agreement between Europe and
the US all points to a much-improved investment environment for corporates
over the coming quarters. Drawing a line under tariff related volatility and
removing trade uncertainty should equally result in market leadership finally
broadening out, which would be welcome news after a long period of
exceptionally narrow markets.

 

Europe remains home to many world-class franchises, companies owning core
technologies that make them the enablers of some of the large transformational
changes going on around us. We aim to align shareholder capital to those
businesses that are exposed to large and enduring spending streams. Overall,
we retain our core exposure to companies with predictable business models,
higher than average returns on capital, strong cash flow conversions and
opportunities to reinvest that cash flow into future growth projects at high
incremental returns.

 

24 December 2025

 

ENDS

 

Latest information is available by typing                                 
www.blackrock.com/uk/brge                                on the internet,
"BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV
terminal).                      Neither the contents of the Manager’s
website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the
Manager’s website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part
of, this announcement.

 Release  (https://mb.cision.com/Main/22396/4286436/3857887.pdf)  



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