BlackRock North American Income Trust (BRNA) has a diversified portfolio comprised mainly of US equities, focused on the 500 largest stocks by market cap. The company’s objective is to provide an attractive and growing level of income return with capital appreciation over the long term. The managers have a low-turnover approach, and a strong focus on valuation, aiming for well-established cash generative companies with clear revenue streams and the potential for dividend growth. The board announced plans in December 2017 to boost the dividend the trust pays by paying a small proportion from capital, and have specified a quarterly dividend of 2p per share for the current financial year. As such the trust currently offers a yield of 5.2%, putting it comfortably ahead of all of its comparable peers in the AIC North America sector on yield terms. The trust was launched in September 2012 and, because of its focus on quality and valuations, had a rocky start, underperforming the index in 2013 and 2014 as bond proxies and financials raced ahead. Stock selection also played a part. Since then, Tony DeSpirito, David Zhao and Franco Tapia have changed the investment process. This has involved increasing the number of staff in the team, as well as developing a new quant screen with the aim of ensuring opportunities are flagged up more rigorously. The team now consists of 21 investment professionals, with on average over a decade’s worth of experience. The trust outperformed the index in 2015 and then kept pace with it in 2016. More latterly, BRNA produced almost double the return in NAV terms of the Russell 1000 Value index in 2017. Over the past year the discount has been relatively volatile, ranging between c.-10% and -2.3%. At the time of writing, the discount is -3.4%.