BlackRock Greater Europe Investment Trust Plc – Portfolio Update

The information contained in this release was correct as at 31 December 2025.
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 December 2025 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) 1.3% -0.3% 5.8% 28.1% 771.5%
Share price 1.9% -1.3% 8.0% 28.0% 737.6%
FTSE World Europe ex UK 2.6% 6.5% 27.9% 52.4% 579.4%

Sources: BlackRock and Datastream

At month end

Net asset value (capital only): 610.95p
Net asset value (including income): 612.92p
Share price: 581.00p
Discount to NAV (including income): 5.2%
Net gearing: 0.2%
Net yield1: 1.2%
Total assets (including income): £570.5m
Ordinary shares in issue2: 93,070,662
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 24,858,276 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 Total Assets (%) Country Analysis Total Assets (%)
Industrials 39.7 France 23.1
Technology 17.1 Switzerland 15.0
Consumer Discretionary 16.0 Netherlands 13.3
Financials 15.1 Germany 8.6
Health Care 8.2 Ireland 6.3
Basic Materials 3.8 Spain 5.7
Net Current Assets 0.1 United States 3.8
—– Finland 3.7
100.0 Belgium 3.7
===== Denmark 3.6
United Kingdom 3.3
Sweden 3.0
Italy 2.6
Austria 2.2
Norway 2.0
Net Current Assets 0.1
—–
100.0
=====

Top 10 holdings Country Fund %
Safran France 7.1
Compagnie Financiere Richemont Switzerland 5.3
Schneider Electric France 4.4
SAP Germany 4.2
ASML Netherlands 4.2
Belimo Switzerland 4.1
Lonza Group Switzerland 3.9
Hermès France 3.9
Adyen Netherlands 3.9
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) Ireland 3.8

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

During the month, the Company’s NAV rose by +1.3% and the share price rose by
+1.9%. For reference, the Europe ex UK market returned +2.6% during the period.

European equities continued higher through December – led mainly by cyclical
sectors – reaching an impressive +27% calendar year 2025 return on the Europe ex
UK index (in GBP terms). While it was a good year for beta, it was an extremely
difficult period for alpha as market gains came on a re-rating of earnings
downgrades. The net effect is a European equity market trading on 16x P/E (price
to earning ratio) which is not cheap relative to history.

Sector allocation effects were marginally negative in December driven by
underweight positioning to financials. Underweight positioning to consumer
staples, utilities and healthcare was beneficial.

Holdings in Lonza, Chemometec and Belimo weighed on relative returns despite
there being no fundamental updates nor significant news flow from the companies
in the month.

European banks, Caixabank and Erste, featured amongst top positive attribution
effects. Caixabank saw a few analyst upgrades, with at least two placing the
bank as their top pick. The company also hosted a sell side meeting that
received strong feedback focusing on loan and deposit growth which is already
running above company targets and should remain sustainably higher alongside GDP
trends. However, the banks rally over the month also hurt relative performance
as the strong share price gains of UBS, Santander and UniCredit placed them
amongst the top detractors.

A position in Inditex benefited the fund after a strong earnings report that saw
the company beat consensus expectations across all lines – an impressive feat as
consensus expectations had already been rising ahead of results. Organic sales
grew 8.4% in Q3, with trading following quarter end accelerating to 10.6% versus
expectations of 7-8% for an important period that includes seasonally large
weeks, including Black Friday. The current trading result derisks Q4’25 before
Q1’26 follows with easier sales comparables. Q3 Margins were also impressive at
11.2% EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes), 6% ahead of consensus.

Not owning large benchmark constituents – Nestle, Air Liquide, Airbus – which
declined over the month was additive for relative returns.

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.

6 February 2026

ENDS

Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.com/uk/brge on 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.

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