Portfolio Update

BLACKROCK SMALLER COMPANIES TRUST PLC

All information is at 31 MAY 2012 and unaudited.

Performance at month end is calculated on a capital only basis

                                One    Three       One      Three      Five
                              Month   Months      Year      Years     Years

Net asset value               -9.8%    -8.6%    -10.1%     101.0%     14.7%
Share price                   -9.9%    -6.5%    -10.0%     101.1%     13.2%
Numis ex Inv Trust + AIM*     -8.3%    -9.1%    -13.5%      42.6%    -24.0%

Sources:  BlackRock and Datastream

*With effect from 1 September 2007 the Numis Smaller Companies plus AIM (ex
Investment Companies) Index, formerly the Hoare Govett Smaller Companies plus
AIM (ex Investment Companies) Index, replaced the FTSE SmallCap Index (ex
Investment Companies) as the Company's benchmark.  For the five year period the
above index has been blended to reflect this.

At month end
Net asset value Capital only (debt at par value):     559.10p
Net asset value Capital only (debt at fair value):    554.91p
Net asset value incl. Income (debt at par value):     562.62p**
Net asset value incl. Income (debt at fair value):    558.43p**
Share price:                                          470.50p
Discount to Cum Income NAV (debt at par value):         16.4%
Discount to Cum Income NAV (debt at fair value):        15.7%
Net yield:                                               1.8%
Total assets:                                         £292.9m^
Gearing incl. Income (debt at fair value):               8.7%
Ordinary shares in issue:                          47,879,792^^

**includes net revenue of 3.52p
^includes current year revenue
^^excludes 2,113,731 shares held in treasury

Ten Largest Sector
Weightings                         % of total assets

Support Services                                 9.4
Electronic & Electrical Equipment                9.3
Oil & Gas Producers                              9.0
Software & Computer Services                     7.9
Industrial Metals & Mining                       6.6
Chemicals                                        6.3
Financial Services                               5.8
Media                                            4.9
General Retailers                                4.8
Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology                4.4
                                                ----
Total                                           68.4
                                                ====

Ten Largest Equity Investments (in alphabetical order)
Company

Ashtead
Aveva Group
Bellway
Booker Group
Elementis
Fidessa 
City of London Investment Group
Oxford Instruments
Senior
Victrex

Commenting on the markets, Mike Prentis, representing the Investment Manager
noted:

During May, the NAV on a capital only basis fell by 9.8%; the benchmark fell by
8.3%. The FTSE 100 Index fell by 7.3% during the month.

May was a highly volatile month beset by concerns about the Eurozone's ability
and will to protect its weaker members. We seem to be no closer to a resolution
of these problems and have little clarity on how agreement can be reached
between the many interested parties. Alongside this, data from other major
markets has been generally weaker; confidence seems to be slipping away. None
of this is good for stockmarkets, especially investing in smaller companies.   

Our benchmark, the Numis Smaller Companies plus AIM (ex Investment Companies) 
Index was weak during the month. By comparison the FTSE 250, FTSE Smallcap
and AIM fell by 7.5%, 7.8% and 11.1% respectively. Our portfolio has tended to
be heavily overweight genuinely small companies. Usually about 20% of the
portfolio by value is in companies capitalised at less than £100 million; many
of these are AIM listed. Our overweight positioning in small and AIM listed
companies is a significant headwind in nervous markets when buyers for shares
in such companies often are scarce. 

Our relative underperformance in May was down to gearing and stock selection.
Gearing was about 9% during the month and contributed 0.7% to underperformance.
Whilst being geared in falling markets is not good, it continues to be the case
that most of our core holdings have balance sheets with net cash.

Stock selection was disappointing. Our worst performer was Hargreaves Services.
Hargreaves Services announced that they had encountered problems driving out a
new face at the underground coal mine at Maltby. This will delay mining of this
part of the mine by several months and the lack of revenue during this period
will reduce profits in its new financial year. We like the company and its
management because it has had considerable success increasing the range, scale
and geographical spread of its activities in a low risk way. Sadly the risks
inherent in deep mining cannot be totally mitigated; we hope this will prove to
be a one-off issue; management certainly can see no prior similar issue in the
mine's long history.  The second largest negative contributor to relative
contribution was not owning Logica, a major constituent of our benchmark
(having joined it in January this year). Logica was bid for and the shares rose
42% during the month. On the positive side we saw a good contribution from
Booker which delivered strong results, earnings up 23%, and announced the
acquisition of Makro, which has 30 large cash and carry stores in the UK. We
had a good meeting with Booker management which reinforced our confidence in
them and their strategy.

Sector allocation was positive with a good contribution from our large
overweight position in electronics. We are roughly neutrally weighted in the
resources sector, but in aggregate the oil & gas producers and mining sectors
represent about 17% of our portfolio and our benchmark. These are highly
volatile sectors and in weak markets they performed poorly falling 16% during
the month. 

Our portfolio positioning remains unchanged with the majority of our portfolio
by value in high quality companies well known to us, many of which are also
exposed to faster growing parts of the world than Europe. We supplement our
core holdings with non-core holdings which have significant potential. Some of
these are higher risk, but where that is the case we only hold small positions.

20 June 2012

ENDS

Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/brscon 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.