REG-BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust Plc: Portfolio Update

Blackrock Greater Europe Investment TrustAnnouncement

06/02/2026 15:45

The information contained in this release was correct as at                   
              31 December 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                                  31 December 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)  1.3%        -0.3%          5.8%       28.1%         771.5%               
 Share price                  1.9%        -1.3%          8.0%       28.0%         737.6%               
 FTSE World Europe ex UK      2.6%        6.5%           27.9%      52.4%         579.4%               

Sources: BlackRock and Datastream                    
           

 

At month end

 Net asset value (capital only):      610.95p     
 Net asset value (including income):  612.92p     
 Share price:                         581.00p     
 Discount to NAV (including income):  5.2%        
 Net gearing:                         0.2%        
 Net yield 1 :                        1.2%        
 Total assets (including income):     £570.5m     
 Ordinary shares in issue 2 :         93,070,662  
 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 24,858,276 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             39.7              
 Technology              17.1              
 Consumer Discretionary  16.0              
 Financials              15.1              
 Health Care             8.2               
 Basic Materials         3.8               
 Net Current Assets      0.1               
                         -----             
                         100.0             
                         =====             
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                           
                                             
 Country Analysis        Total Assets (%)  
 France                  23.1              
 Switzerland             15.0              
 Netherlands             13.3              
 Germany                 8.6               
 Ireland                 6.3               
 Spain                   5.7               
 United States           3.8               
 Finland                 3.7               
 Belgium                 3.7               
 Denmark                 3.6               
 United Kingdom          3.3               
 Sweden                  3.0               
 Italy                   2.6               
 Austria                 2.2               
 Norway                  2.0               
 Net Current Assets      0.1               
                         -----             
                         100.0             
                         =====             
                                           

 


 

 Top 10 holdings                 Country      Fund %  
 Safran                          France       7.1     
 Compagnie Financiere Richemont  Switzerland  5.3     
 Schneider Electric              France       4.4     
 SAP                             Germany      4.2     
 ASML                            Netherlands  4.2     
 Belimo                          Switzerland  4.1     
 Lonza Group                     Switzerland  3.9     
 Hermès                          France       3.9     
 Adyen                           Netherlands  3.9     
 Allied Irish Banks (AIB)        Ireland      3.8     
                                                      

 

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

                       

During the month, the Company’s NAV rose by +1.3% and the share price rose
by +1.9%. For reference, the Europe ex UK market returned +2.6% during the
period.

 

European equities continued higher through December – led mainly by cyclical
sectors – reaching an impressive +27% calendar year 2025 return on the
Europe ex UK index (in GBP terms). While it was a good year for beta, it was
an extremely difficult period for alpha as market gains came on a re-rating of
earnings downgrades. The net effect is a European equity market trading on 16x
P/E (price to earning ratio) which is not cheap relative to history.

 

Sector allocation effects were marginally negative in December driven by
underweight positioning to financials. Underweight positioning to consumer
staples, utilities and healthcare was beneficial.

 

Holdings in Lonza, Chemometec and Belimo weighed on relative returns despite
there being no fundamental updates nor significant news flow from the
companies in the month.

 

European banks, Caixabank and Erste, featured amongst top positive attribution
effects. Caixabank saw a few analyst upgrades, with at least two placing the
bank as their top pick. The company also hosted a sell side meeting that
received strong feedback focusing on loan and deposit growth which is already
running above company targets and should remain sustainably higher alongside
GDP trends. However, the banks rally over the month also hurt relative
performance as the strong share price gains of UBS, Santander and UniCredit
placed them amongst the top detractors.

 

A position in Inditex benefited the fund after a strong earnings report that
saw the company beat consensus expectations across all lines – an impressive
feat as consensus expectations had already been rising ahead of results.
Organic sales grew 8.4% in Q3, with trading following quarter end accelerating
to 10.6% versus expectations of 7-8% for an important period that includes
seasonally large weeks, including Black Friday. The current trading result
derisks Q4’25 before Q1’26 follows with easier sales comparables. Q3
Margins were also impressive at 11.2% EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and
Taxes), 6% ahead of consensus.

 

Not owning large benchmark constituents - Nestle, Air Liquide, Airbus - which
declined over the month was additive for relative returns.

 

Outlook

 

The global economy remains on solid footing, where the only significant
imbalance we can see is within sovereign debt markets, but for now that
remains contained with spreads at reasonable levels. We also have Germany
spending again. While there is dearth of evidence that this is providing a
benefit within corporates to date, it leaves an upside tailwind for the fiscal
impulse to be felt later on in the year. Meanwhile, the consumer remains
healthy in both balance sheet and profit and loss terms. Confidence in
spending that wealth has been low, though there are catalysts to loosen the
spending taps, particularly in the US as rates come down. The US 10-year yield
should fall with disinflationary impacts across most US sectors, as well as
disinflationary labour effects, leaving no reason to hold US rates at current
levels. The easier financial conditions could also provide a long-awaited
boost to activity within the industrial economy, which looks healthy as
corporate leverage in Europe is as low as it’s ever been and the US also
sits at very low levels. We continue to see a resilient bottom-up picture
which should support a change in market drivers in time once uncertainties
clear, adding breadth to what has been a very narrowly driven market.         
 

 

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.

 

6 February 2026

 

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/22396/4303955/3922428.pdf)  



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