Discount Delver: the 10 cheapest trusts on 15 May 2026

Investment trusts offer a potential bargain thanks to their closed-ended structure. That happens when a trust’s share price is lower than the value of its underlying investments (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 it.        

• Invest with ii: Invest in Investment Trusts | Top UK Shares| Interactive investor Offers

In this 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 £30 million in assets and those that are not available on the interactive investor platform.

Private equity woes persist

Two big beasts of the private equity sector have made it into the table again thanks to their very specific portfolio gremlins.

First up there’s 3i Group Ord, whose shares have lost around 35% so far in 2026 amid worries about softening sales growth for its main holding discount retailer Action in France, as well as Action’s US expansion plans.

Our data runs to the close of trading on 13 May but it’s worth noting that shares in the trust sold off afresh yesterday after it released full-year results.

The trust unveiled a share buyback programme but also told investors that Action’s sales growth had slipped thanks to “continued consumer caution in France and lower traffic in Germany since the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East at the end of March”.

• Ian Cowie: the Europe trusts delivering the goods
• SpaceX IPO: everything you need to know

3i Group is not the only former private equity darling to struggle.

Software as a service specialist HgCapital Trust Ord put out a quarterly trading update just over a week ago and noted that its NAV had fallen by 5.4% in the first three months of the year thanks to “a material contraction in valuation multiples”. That relates to the software sell-off we saw earlier this year.

Winding down

We once again see a handful of trusts that are already in the process of a wind down move out to slightly bigger discounts, with debt fund RM Infrastructure Income Ord, Ecofin US Renewables Infrastructure Ord and Chrysalis Investments Limited Ord making it into this week’s table.

Beyond that, some very varied names see their discounts advance, if only by a modest amount.

The troubled global fund Lindsell Train Ord appears in the list, as does core infrastructure play International Public Partnerships Ord, the multi-asset fund Majedie Investments Ord and activist vehicle Achilles Investment Company Ord. These names haven’t seen any obvious major news in the last week.

• Funds vs trusts with same manager: the biggest performance gaps
• Sign up to our free newsletter for investment ideas, latest news and award-winning analysis

It’s also worth touching on one name that, surprisingly, hasn’t made it into the table. The board of Aquila European Renewables Ord, another name currently in wind-down, this week announced that its negotiations with the fund’s investment manager about the proposed sale of a basket of assets had broken down.

The board claims that the investment manager, Aquila Capial, “sought to alter the proposed transaction by increasing the assets under offer to approximately two-thirds of the portfolio, while reducing the total consideration and thereby applying a materially wider discount to the NAV”.

Source: Morningstar, close of trading 7 May to 13 May 2026.