Discount Delver: the 10 cheapest trusts on 1 August 2025

Investment trusts, due to their closed-ended structure, offer investors the chance of picking up a potential bargain. Such an opportunity arises when a trust’s share price is lower than the underlying investments held by the trust (the net asset value, or NAV).   

However, a trust trading on a discount to NAV is not necessarily a buying opportunity. There’s likely a good reason why the trust is cheap, such as subdued short- or long-term performance, or poor investor sentiment towards how it invests.   

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In our weekly series, interactive investor highlights the 10 biggest investment trust discount moves over the past week.

In total, nearly 400 investment trusts have been screened, with the data sourced from Morningstar. Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) have been excluded. We also strip out trusts with less than £20 million in assets and those that are not available on the interactive investor platform. 

Three investment trusts saw their discounts widen by nearly eight percentage points last week: Aquila European Renewables, abrdn European Logistics Income and Alternative Income REIT.

All own “real assets” such as commercial buildings and renewable energy assets. However, Aquila is being wound down, with the holdings being sold and cash returned to investors.

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In fact, most trusts on this week’s Discount Delver list own unlisted physical assets, as opposed to listed stocks or bonds.

They include Greencoat UK Wind (-16.8% discount), Renewables Infrastructure Group (-25% discount) and Life Science REIT (-48% discount).

The investment trust structure, where the shares are listed and offer instant liquidity, but the underlying assets are a permanent capital base, means that trusts are a good vehicle for owning illiquid assets.

However, this can lead to periods where the share price can diverge from the net asset value of the portfolio, leading to wide discounts, or less frequently, premiums.

In fact, the only Discount Delver member this week that invests in listed equities is VietNam Holding (-8.7% discount). The shares of this trust have been volatile due to Donald Trump’s trade war, as Vietnam is a key manufacturing hub for goods that enter the United States.

NB Private Equity Partners invests in unlisted companies via positions in third-party private equity funds, while ICG-Longbow Senior Secured UK Property Debt lends money to property developers. 

Source: Morningstar. *Data from close of trading 23 July 2025 to 30 July 2025.