BLACKROCK GREATER EUROPE INVESTMENT TRUST plc
All information is at 30 June 2009 and unaudited.
Performance at month end with net income reinvested
One Three One Three Since Launch
Month Months Year Years (20 Sep 04)
Net asset value -4.6% 8.3% -20.9% -11.4% 39.2%
Share price -4.4% 8.1% -21.5% -16.3% 27.2%
FTSE World Europe ex UK -4.3% 9.8% -20.1% -7.2% 34.0%
Sources: BlackRock and Datastream
At month end
Net asset value (capital only): 127.80p
Net asset value (including income): 131.02p*
* Includes net revenue of 3.2p
Share price: 119.50p
Discount to NAV (capital only): 6.5%
Discount to NAV (including income): 8.8%
Gearing (including income): 2.1%
Net yield: 2.5%
Total assets: £140.6m**
Ordinary shares in issue: 105,124,598***
** Including current year revenue.
*** Excluding 1,696,092 shares held in treasury.
Benchmark
Sector Analysis Total Assets Index (%) Country Analysis Total Assets
(%) (%)
Financials 33.3 24.8 France 27.1
Industrials 21.2 12.6 Germany 22.2
Consumer Goods 11.4 14.6 Switzerland 12.8
Basic Materials 8.1 6.7 Spain 11.5
Utilities 7.5 8.3 Netherlands 7.3
Telecommunications 5.5 7.4 Italy 6.2
Oil & Gas 5.5 7.5 Norway 3.9
Consumer Services 5.5 5.3 Ireland 3.5
Health Care 5.1 8.9 Luxembourg 2.0
Technology 1.7 3.9 Portugal 2.0
Net current liabilities (4.8) - Denmark 1.6
----- ----- Austria 1.4
100.0 100.0 Greece 1.1
===== ===== Finland 1.0
Belgium 0.5
Sweden 0.4
Russia 0.3
Net current liabilities (4.8)
-----
100.0
=====
Ten Largest Equity Investments (in alphabetical order)
Company Country of Risk
Allianz Germany
AXA France
Banco Santander Spain
BNP Paribas France
Danone France
E.On Germany
Lafarge France
Roche Switzerland
Telefonica Spain
Unicredito Italy
Commenting on the markets, Vincent Devlin, representing the Investment Manager
noted:
Following the rally in April and May, markets stalled in June as a theme of
hesitancy prevailed. Cyclical assets were sold off at the beginning of the
month as investors took profits, but uncertainty around where to re-allocate
caused the markets to stall as defensive assets such as Telecoms and Utilities
proved less prone to the decline. Although some risk appetite remains, the
market continued to wait for positive economic news flow to buttress hopes of a
second-stage rally, as reflected in the low trading volumes in June. European
equities suffered in this environment, with the FTSE World Europe ex UK Index
falling by 4.3%. The Company's NAV underperformed the reference index in June,
losing 4.6%.
The Company benefited in June from stock selection in Financials. Spanish bank
Banco Santander performed strongly upon the realisation that exposure to
non-performing loans was not as high as anticipated. Life insurer Irish Life &
Permanent and non- life insurer AXA both performed well; in addition, the
Company benefited from not owning some financials that suffered heavy losses in
the month, such as Deutsche Bank. Other positions that contributed well in the
month included utility company E.On, pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk and fixed line
telecommunications company Telefonica.
Underperformance came from a number of cyclical names within Insurance and
Consumer Goods that suffered from the profit taking, having recently performed
strongly. This included positions in construction firms Bouygues and Bauer, as
well as recruitment firm Randstad. As the market declined, the Company also
suffered underperformance from being short cash throughout the month.
During the month, the Company added to its exposure in Insurance with the
addition of a holding in Allianz and to Industrials through three purchases in
the Capital Goods industry. These additions were funded through sales of Health
Care names and of a holding in the BlackRock Eurasian Frontiers Hedge Fund,
which was sold in order to increase the beta of the Company.
On a sector view, the Company ended the month overweight Financials,
Industrials and Basic Materials, broadly neutral Consumer Services and
underweight Oil & Gas, Consumer Goods, Health Care, Telecommunications,
Utilities and Technology.
We remain confident in the outlook for European equities. We believe that after
a temporary respite markets will respond positively to earnings improvements
and economic data confirming that we are through the worst of the recession.
Industrial production should improve over the next quarter as a re-stocking
cycle begins and GDP figures may show moderate growth by the end of the year.
With money beginning to flow back into European equities from other asset
classes, future rallies are likely to include a wider range of sectors. Stock
picking will therefore be the key to outperformance. Our rigorous, fundamental
bottom up investment process is ideally suited to identifying companies trading
on attractive relative valuations with improving prospects.
Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/its on the
internet, "BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV
terminal).
20 July 2009
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Does not distribute, republish or otherwise provide any information or derived works to any third party in any manner or use or process information or derived works for any commercial purposes.
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