Performance at month end - Ma

Merrill Lynch UK Inv Tst PLC
18 June 2001


MONTHLY PERFORMANCE

MERRILL LYNCH UK INVESTMENT TRUST plc

All information is at 31 May 2001 and unaudited.

Performance at month end with net income reinvested

                      One month  Three months One year  Three years  Five years
Net asset value           -2.5%         -2.6%    -8.5%        -3.2%       52.3%
Share price               -1.0%         -2.4%     2.8%       -13.1%       40.3%
FTSE All-Share Index      -1.8%         -1.1%    -4.6%         7.8%       70.4%


At month end
Net asset value*                                          1105.21p
Share price                                               1021.50p
Discount                                                  7.6%
Total assets                                              £195.1m
Net Yield                                                 2.9%
Gearing:                                                  25.4%
Effective gearing of Company                              21.9%
Value of debt:                                            £40.0m
Ordinary shares in issue                                  14,093,562

(There were no share repurchases during the month)

*Includes current year net revenue of 2.69p
UK Sectors                                                          % Portfolio
Financials                                                                 25.2
Cyclical Services                                                          23.6
Non-Cyclical Consumer Goods                                                13.8
Resources                                                                  11.8
Non-Cyclical Services                                                      11.3
Basic Industries                                                            4.8
General Industrials                                                         3.1
Utilities                                                                   3.0
Information Technology                                                      1.4
Net current assets                                                          2.0

Total                                                                     100.0




Ten Largest Equity Investments                                 % of Investments
BP Amoco                                                                    6.6
GlaxoSmithKline                                                             6.2
Vodafone                                                                    5.7
Barclays                                                                    5.2
AstraZeneca                                                                 5.1
Royal Bank of Scotland                                                      4.6
HSBC                                                                        3.4
Shell Transport and Trading Co                                              2.9
Next                                                                        2.1
Amvescap                                                                    2.0
Total                                                                      43.8



Update commentary



The Trust's NAV underperformed the FTSE All Share Index, falling by 2.5%
during May 2001. The UK stockmarket sold-off slightly during the month, after
a strong April.

The Trust remains slightly underweight in telecoms overall, although we have
recently been adding to British Telecom. Our positioning within this sector
had a positive impact on relative performance in May. We remained underweight
in IT hardware and software shares, which suffered from near term earnings
worries and uncertainty surrounding the prospects for a recovery in technology
and telecoms-related capital expenditure.

The relatively robust outlook for UK consumer demand caused us to maintain our
emphasis on building & construction shares and general retailers, which
continued to perform well. Holdings in Next and Debenhams rose strongly. Also
part of the cyclical theme, mining shares continued to outperform the
stockmarket. The Trust benefited from its position in Lonmin, which was
boosted after announcing strong results.

We believe that the risk of protracted global recession is receding, and
expect the prospects for corporate earnings to improve later this year and
into early 2002. As a result, we are looking to increase our positions in '
growth-orientated' shares. We are overweight media companies where the
stockmarket is nervous about the outlook for spending on advertising. This is
providing some buying opportunities at lower levels in shares such as BSkyB
and Reuters. In our view, selected telecoms shares have become attractively
valued, although expectations of strong supply over coming months means that
the near term outlook remains unclear.


Sources: Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Standard & Poor's Micropal

Latest information is available by typing www.mlim.co.uk/its on the internet,
'MLIMINDEX' on Reuters, 'MLIM' on Bloomberg or '8800' on Topic 3 (ICV
terminal).

14 June 2001