BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust Plc - Portfolio Update
The information contained in this release was correct as at
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-home.html .
All information is at
Performance at month end with net income reinvested
One Three One Three Launch
Month Months Year Years (20 Sep 04)
Net asset value (undiluted) 1.3% -9.4% -7.2% 16.2% 719.2%
Share price 2.6% -8.2% -8.8% 13.7% 685.9%
FTSE World Europe ex UK 1.5% 1.0% 7.2% 32.7% 480.3%
Sources: BlackRock and Datastream
At month end
Net asset value (capital only): 579.92p Net asset value (including income): 583.00p Share price: 552.00p Discount to NAV (including income): 5.3% Net gearing: 4.1% Net yield1: 1.3% Total assets (including income): £561.1m Ordinary shares in issue2: 96,245,411 Ongoing charges3: 0.95%
1
Based on a final dividend of 5.25p per share for the year ended
2
Excluding 21,683,527 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
Country Analysis Total Assets (%)
France 18.5
Switzerland 15.0
Sector Analysis Total Assets (%) Germany 12.7
Industrials 35.7 Netherlands 11.6
Consumer Discretionary 22.1 United Kingdom 7.2
Technology 13.5 Sweden 6.1
Health Care 10.7 Denmark 5.9
Financials 10.0 Ireland 5.2
Basic Materials 6.5 Italy 4.5
Real Estate 2.1 United States 4.0
Net Current -0.6 Finland 3.2
Liabilities
Belgium 2.6
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Norway 2.5
100.0
Spain 1.6
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Net Current Liabilities -0.6
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100.0
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Top 10 holdings Country Fund % RELX United Kingdom 7.1 Safran France 6.0 Hermès France 5.1 SAP Germany 4.7 Ferrari Italy 4.5 Compagnie Financière Richemont Switzerland 4.2 Schneider Electric France 4.2 Lonza Group Switzerland 4.1 Linde United States 4.0 Adyen Netherlands 3.8
Commenting on the markets,
During the month, the Company’s NAV rose by 1.3% and the share price by 2.6%. For reference, the FTSE World Europe ex
Market volatility was particularly elevated this month and peaked in early April as investors reacted to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on US imports and then a few days later announced a 90-day pause for most countries except
Quarterly earnings reported in the month gave companies a chance to communicate revised outlooks. Investors may be settled by many companies not yet seeing any impacts to backlog orders, but as expected, forward looking comments were generally more cautious in tone. A notable positive from the earnings season is that guidance from hyperscalers included increased capex spending, muting concerns that advancements made by
At a sector level, traditionally defensive Real Estate and Utilities sectors were outperformers, while Energy and Health Care were weakest, dragged down by growing recession risk and lingering questions surrounding pharmaceutical companies on the back of threats from Trump’s administration.
The Company outperformed the reference index on a share price basis over the month, despite having lagged on a NAV basis. Stock selection effect was additive: broadly, portfolio companies have been showing resilience in the current volatile environment.
Belimo performed strongly in the month, reporting 22% organic revenue growth in Q1'25, outperforming across all regions and accelerating further versus last year. The company is continuing to see strength in data centres and is particularly benefiting from the need for cooling systems for Nvidia's Blackwell chips. Belimo showed confidence in their near-term outlook by raising their full year sales and margin expectations given their good order visibility.
A position in Lonza contributed positively over the month. The pharmaceutical company is well positioned to mitigate the possible impacts of tariffs due to their domestic US production capabilities. This has been further increased recently due to their acquisition of the
The Company's holding in Nemetschek contributed to active returns after reporting solid Q1'25 results. The software company has been able to consistently exceed earnings expectations since mid-2024 and this has continued with a 2% beat in revenue. This was driven by the Subscriptions and SaaS part of the business which is now close to 70% of group revenues and continues to increase.
A weakening US dollar negatively impacted dollar earners over the month. This was a driver of Linde’s weak share price, as well as pressures from weak gas volumes. Negative news also came from Dow pausing a net-zero petrochemical project. As part of the project, Linde is set to provide a blue hydrogen plant that makes up
A number of the Company's holdings in European aerospace and defence companies - MTU, Safran, Thales – were also impacted by the weakening US dollar, in addition to some profit taking from the market leading to a decline. Shares rebounded by the end of the month as companies started to release solid earnings reports. For example, Safran’s earnings included 25% organic revenue growth for the Spare Parts business, 10% ahead of consensus estimates. It was also encouraging to hear management had not seen a change in airline behaviour given the tariff uncertainty and conversations regarding exemptions for aerospace companies had been heading in the right direction.
Partners Group provided negative attribution as the uncertain economic environment continues to disadvantage the ability for private equity firms to complete exits and crystalise performance fees.
Outlook
While near-term uncertainty has increased, we continue to see a resilient bottom-up picture of both consumers and corporates. In our home market,
Historically,
While the geopolitical landscape is challenging to navigate, especially with US policy keeping investors on their toes, focusing on changing earnings streams can help deliver strong long-term outcomes for investors. 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.
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.
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