Annual results from BlackRock World Mining (BRWM) have left investors on tenterhooks as to whether the £1.6bn investment trust can repeat last year’s “stellar” performance as conflict in the Middle East and high oil prices hang over markets.
Shareholders in the largest London-listed mining funds received a 74.1% total return in 2025 in line with the portfolio’s impressive advance which beat the 64.2% rise in the MSCI ACWI Metals and Mining 30% Buffer 10/40 index it uses as a benchmark.
This was the result of a second half rebound that was among the strongest in the company’s 30-year history. After a first half in which net asset value grew just 8.2% and the shares 12.5%, with the portfolio buffeted by fears of US tariffs as well as mine flooding in the Congo and other adverse developments, the second half saw BRWM borne aloft by the surge in precious metals, such as silver, gold and platinum copper, and base metals like copper and tin.
Structural changes such as increased spending on infrastructure, including AI data centres, defence and energy security, ensured high demand for these mined commodities, it said.
Gearing, or borrowing, contributed to the outperformance although fund managers Evy Hambro and Olivia Markham dialled this down to 4.7% at the end of the year from a peak of 13.6%. The average through the year was 8.8%.
A final dividend of 7.5p per share brings total quarterly dividends for the year to 24p, 4.3% more than the 23p paid in 2024, and covered by 24.37p per share in revenues, up 5.5% on the previous year.
Chair “Chip” Goodyear said 2025 was “a clear illustration of our value as a nimble ‘virtual mining company’, without the constraints that come with the development of fixed mining assets, and the excellent use of the investment trust structure.”
Hambro and Markham said, “it is a delight to write that in 2025 share prices rose significantly to reflect the strong fundamentals. It is important to understand why markets did so well to estimate what will happen in 2026. We don’t expect the drivers of last year’s gains to change unless we see a global economic shock,” a reference to the impact of high oil prices that have shot up to over $100 a barrel this month in response to the US and Israel war on Iran.
They said: “In fact, commodity markets look set to be even stronger as demand continues to be outgrow supply. It will be up to investors to decide what price to put on this, and that will determine total return for 2026, but the year has started well.”
The managers added that “should commodity price strength be sustained, growth in dividends/capital returns should occur in the second half of 2026.”
Shares in BRWM rallied 5%, or 43.7p, to 923.7p today. After an initial rally on the first day of the war in the Middle East, they have fallen from £10.42 and closed on a 9% discount to NAV yesterday, having returned a total of 91.8% over five years and nearly 600% over 10 years.
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