Jupiter European Opportunities (JEO) is a growth-orientated portfolio of high-quality companies listed across continental Europe and the UK. Since 2000, Alexander Darwall has invested JEO’s capital in the same manner – by investing in what he sees as exceptional companies, expected to grow irrespective of the wider economic environment or stock market cycles. He sets great store by company meetings with management, trying to identify the twin pillars of “the right company” and “the right management” which underpin his disciplined approach to stock selection. Having identified these companies, he looks to identify long-term structural trends which will help the company grow. Alexander has full flexibility to invest outside of continental European listed companies. The requirement is that most of the companies held will undertake a substantial proportion of their business activities within Europe. Currently c. 20% of assets are invested in UK listed companies. In the managers view, their investee companies are increasingly global, but are unified by their common roots as being driven by European expertise. Compared to the investment trust peer group, JEO has been the best performer over one, three, five and 10 years to the end of December. Since 2001 Alexander has only underperformed the benchmark in two years – 2008 and 2016. The compounding effect of Alexander’s outperformance has meant, over the last ten years, the trust has delivered NAV total returns of 247% against a benchmark return of 80%, and the average open-ended European fund of 84.7%. Relative to peers, according to Morningstar’s “style” analysis, JEO has the purest “growth” portfolio of the investment trust peer group. It is also the only trust which has any significant exposure to UK stocks, and whilst over the long run the NAV has similar volatility as peers, over the past three years it has been the most volatile. Gearing has, over the long-term, averaged around 10%, according to the manager. However, seeing good opportunities appearing during 2016, gearing was ramped up quite significantly and started 2017 at 17%. The current level of gearing is in the region of 4%. European investment trusts across the board have recovered much of the ground lost in discount terms since the referendum, and JEO has consistently traded at a premium rating to the rest of the investment trust peer group