BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust Plc – Portfolio Update

The information contained in this release was correct as at 31 January 2026.
Information on the Company’s up to date net asset values can be found on the
London Stock Exchange website at:

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news
-home.html.

BLACKROCK GREATER EUROPE INVESTMENT TRUST PLC (LEI – 5493003R8FJ6I76ZUW55)

All information is at 31 January 2026 and unaudited.
Performance at month end with net income reinvested

One Three One Three Launch

Month Months Year Years (20 Sep 04)

Net asset value (undiluted) 0.9% -1.2% -2.8% 19.0% 779.4%
Share price 0.9% -1.2% -1.3% 19.8% 744.8%
FTSE World Europe ex UK 2.6% 6.0% 21.3% 46.6% 596.9%

Sources: BlackRock and Datastream

At month end

Net asset value (capital only): 616.62p
Net asset value (including income): 618.47p
Share price: 586.00p
Discount to NAV (including income): 5.3%
Net gearing: 2.3%
Net yield1: 1.2%
Total assets (including income): £573.1m
Ordinary shares in issue2: 92,661,158
Ongoing charges3: 0.95%

1  Based on a an interim dividend of 1.75p per share and a final dividend of
5.40p per share for the year ended 31 August 2025.

2  Excluding 25,267,780 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 31 August 2025.

Sector Analysis Country Analysis Total Assets (%)
Total Assets (%) France 22.5
Industrials Netherlands 18.9
40.9 Switzerland 14.8
Financials Germany 6.9
18.9 Ireland 6.2
Technology Spain 5.8
17.6 Belgium 3.9
Consumer Finland 3.7
Discretionary 13.8 Sweden 3.1
Health Care Denmark 3.1
7.7 United States 3.0
Basic Materials United Kingdom 2.9
3.0 Italy 2.6
Utilities Norway 2.6
0.4 Austria 2.3
Net Current Net Current Liabilities -2.3
Liabilities -2.3 —–
100.0
—– =====

100.0

=====

Top 10 holdings Country Fund %
Safran France 6.9
ASML Netherlands 6.2
Compagnie Financiere Richemont Switzerland 4.5
Schneider Electric France 4.4
Belimo Switzerland 4.4
KBC Groep Belgium 3.8
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) Ireland 3.8
Lonza Group Switzerland 3.8
BE Semiconductor Netherlands 3.8
Kone Finland 3.6

Commenting on the markets, Stefan Gries and Brian Hall, representing the
Investment Manager noted:

During the month, the Company’s NAV rose +0.9% and the share price rose +0.9%.
For reference, the Europe ex UK market returned +2.6% during the period.

Momentum trades continued in January, with many of last year’s outperformers
contributing to market gains while familiar themes, such as AI disruption,
wreaked further havoc on areas such as software, payments and information
services businesses. We had trimmed the portfolio’s exposure to this headwind in
Q4’25 and have continued to decrease what we see as risk skewed to the downside,
favouring to build on the portfolio’s overweights to areas where earnings upside
is increasingly well underpinned, such as the semiconductor cycle that continues
to see evidence of strengthening.

The macro backdrop has also been supportive with Q4’25 global growth surprising
to the upside. Strength in US GDP, +4.4% in 2025, has been important for
confidence after concerns around tariffs and the consumer. The labour market
there continues to plod along with no signs of anything particularly sinister.
While hiring hasn’t been overly strong, there has not been an increase in
firings on the other side as seen by the NFP (nonfarm payroll) and initial
jobless claims respectively. In Europe, Germany, Spain and France have all
surprised to the upside in Q4’25. We are seeing more factory orders, higher
business confidence, and consumer confidence improving. However, geopolitics
remain a wild card that is likely to keep volatility elevated (e.g. US
escalation in Venezuela, and rhetoric on Iran and Greenland) apparent in the FX
market in January as the USD weakened again.

Sector allocation effects were positive in January driven by overweight
positioning to industries benefiting from AI and European Defence spend while
remaining underweight consumer staples.

The AI loser narrative continued into the new year, bringing down shares of
positions including Adyen, RELX, SAP and Nemetschek. While we are awaiting
results from most, we received a pre-release from Nemetschek showing a +17% year
-on-year constant FX growth, 4% ahead of consensus expectations. SAP reported,
disappointing the market with their current cloud backlog (CCB) as expectations
were raised due to bullish communication from management in December. This has
since been attributed to some more complicated deals being pushed out to 2026.
We retain our fundamental view that the unique data bases these companies hold,
make the barriers to AI disruption high. However, we must be pragmatic regarding
the unknowns that come with rapid AI innovation. For example, there may be the
possibility for AI to imitate some of the services typically sold alongside the
proprietary data. We are on high alert to any impacts this may have on company
performance but are yet to see any. Equally, it’s hard to dispel the market’s
concerns. We have reduced some of these holdings over the month as although we
believe the companies are well positioned individually, it is difficult to
identify a catalyst that would change market views and the significant
volatility caused by AI loser basket trading is likely to remain in the
meantime.

A position in Richemont detracted with shares down despite reporting excellent
fiscal Q3 figures that included above-expectation organic growth of +14% in the
key Jewellery Maison division. Shares suffered in part from the surging prices
of precious metals, implying some pressure on gross margins and/or material
price increases to offset; and in part from read across of more lackluster
results from a peer.

Chemometec declined over the month despite limited company specific news. The
backdrop for cell counting equipment manufacturing remains strong, but
volatility in the share price can be expected for the smid-cap after strong
gains in late 2025.

BE Semiconductor was the top contributor over the month. Semiconductor companies
are starting to see a rush from customers to increase capacity to serve growing
AI needs, creating tight memory prices which benefit the wafer fab equipment
(WFE) names. A positive trading update from BESI shows strong order growth of
+43% quarter-on-quarter and +105% year-on-year. Optimism for the broad industry
also increased as ASML reported their largest booking quarter ever at €13.2
billion, well above consensus expectations of €6.95 billion.

A position in Belimo rose as the company reported excellent preliminary FY’25
figures during January, showing an impressive acceleration in organic sales
growth to +26% in H2’25, arriving above guidance and market expectation driven
both by the booming data centre business and a notable acceleration in the
underlying ‘core’ business.

European defence companies bounced back after underperforming the market in the
tail end of 2025, boosting the portfolio’s holdings in Kongsberg and Thales.
Headlines continue to influence European defence shares and the lack of progress
on peace in addition to fresh geopolitical concerns from the US escalation of
military action in Venezuela, Iran, and Greenland saw a recovery in the defence
industry. Geopolitical headlines create volatility for these shares, however we
remain focused on the long-term investment thesis for the sector – the
requirement for Europe to rearm – which is not predicated on a single current
conflict.

Outlook

The global economy remains on solid footing, where the only significant
imbalance we can see is within sovereign debt markets, but for now that remains
contained with spreads at reasonable levels. We also have Germany spending
again. While there is dearth of evidence that this is providing a benefit within
corporates to date, it leaves an upside tailwind for the fiscal impulse to be
felt later on in the year. Meanwhile, the consumer remains healthy in both
balance sheet and profit and loss terms. Confidence in spending that wealth has
been low, though there are catalysts to loosen the spending taps, particularly
in the US as rates come down. The US 10-year yield should fall with
disinflationary impacts across most US sectors, as well as disinflationary
labour effects, leaving no reason to hold US rates at current levels. The easier
financial conditions could also provide a long-awaited boost to activity within
the industrial economy, which looks healthy as corporate leverage in Europe is
as low as it’s ever been and the US also sits at very low levels. We continue to
see a resilient bottom-up picture which should support a change in market
drivers in time once uncertainties clear, adding breadth to what has been a very
narrowly driven market.

Europe remains home to many world-class franchises, companies owning core
technologies that make them the enablers of some of the large transformational
changes going on around us. We aim to align shareholder capital to those
businesses that are exposed to large and enduring spending streams. 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.

26 February 2026

ENDS

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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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