New co-manager appointed in June 2017

BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust (BRGE) aims to generate capital growth from a relatively concentrated portfolio invested across the greater European region. In June 2017, it was announced that Stefan Gries would replace Vincent Devlin as co-manager. He will continue to adopt BRGE’s flexible bottom-up stock selection approach, drawing on the wider resources of BlackRock’s European and emerging markets equity teams, but is reducing the number of holdings and intends opportunistically to make fuller use of the emerging European allocation. The trust is referenced against the FTSE World Europe ex-UK index and its NAV total return has outperformed over three and 10 years and is broadly in line over five years, while lagging over the last 12 months. Although the primary aim is capital growth, BRGE has a progressive dividend policy. Its current dividend yield is 1.7%, which is in line with its peer group average.