BRGE : BlackRock Greater Europe suffers in second half
BlackRock Greater Europe has announced results for the year that ended on 31 August 2014 that show its net asset value delivered a total return of 4.5% over the year – the fund underperformed the FTSE World Europe ex UK Index which returned 10.4% and unfortunately the discount widened so the return to shareholders was 2.8%. There was quite a sharp fall in revenue for the period (they say reflecting the sale of higher yielding stocks and an absence of special dividends in the year) but the Board increased the dividend by 4.4% from 4.5p to 4.7p.
The investment manager’s report says that the portfolio suffered as previously high flying stocks in areas such as technology, industrials and financials came under selling pressure in the latter part of the fund’s year – they say that “in some cases, shares fell by more than 20% in a matter of weeks despite no observable deterioration in the earnings or cash flow profile of the business”.
The stock that had the biggest negative impact on the portfolio was Sberbank as its share price fell by more than a quarter.