405. Where Europe’s income opportunities lie

European equities have long appealed to income investors, but the opportunity is becoming broader than dividends alone. Stuart Brown, co-manager of the BlackRock Continental European Income fund, joins us to discuss improving earnings and dividend growth across industrials, banks and utilities, alongside the structural themes supporting them, including electrification, energy security and supply-chain investment. The discussion also examines regional portfolio positioning, the resilience of European companies amid geopolitical disruption, and selective opportunities in defence. Finally, it considers why share buybacks, improving business fundamentals and more shareholder-friendly capital allocation could strengthen Europe’s total return potential.

What’s covered in this episode: 

• Europe’s evolving income opportunity
• Sustainable dividend growth
• Opportunities within industrials
• Electrification and energy security
• Regional portfolio positioning
• France beyond domestic politics
• Southern European banks
• Falling rates and bank earnings
• AI adoption in financial services
• Infrastructure-like utilities
• Defence spending and valuations
• Managing geopolitical risk
• Supply-chain investment
• The growth of share buybacks
• Europe’s changing total return story

Learn more on fundcalibre.com

Please remember, we’ve been discussing individual companies to bring investing to life for you. It’s not a recommendation to buy or sell. The fund may or may not still hold these companies at the time of listening. Elite Ratings are based on FundCalibre’s research methodology and are the opinion of FundCalibre’s research team only.