{"id":479298,"date":"2026-03-16T22:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479298\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T22:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:26:09","slug":"scottish-mortgage-seeks-more-private-exposure-as-spacex-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479298\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Mortgage seeks more private exposure as SpaceX rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is seeking shareholder approval to invest an extra \u00a3250 million in unlisted companies after the value of Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX almost doubled late last year. <\/p>\n<p>The additional capacity, which would increase the trust\u2019s exposure to private companies to more than the current 30 per cent cap, is equivalent to about 1.7 per cent of Scottish Mortgage\u2019s total assets of \u00a315.2 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Shareholders will vote on the proposals at a general meeting on April 10. From the 2027 annual meeting onwards, the extra \u00a3250 million capacity will be subject to annual shareholder approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The cap does not force the fund managers to rebalance the portfolio, but it does prevent them from making additional investments in private firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, the cap was breached last December after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/business\/companies-markets\/article\/spacex-rit-capital-partners-rothschild-pj0w05277\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceX<\/a>\u2019s valuation rocketed. Staff at Musk\u2019s space exploration firm were able to sell their shares to investors as part of a tender offer that valued the company at $800 billion, nearly double the previous level.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Scottish Mortgage\u2019s exposure to SpaceX rose to 15.1 per cent of its total assets in December, up from 8.2 per cent the month before. It has since increased to 15.4 per cent, making its stake worth about \u00a32.2 billion, up from about \u00a3508 million in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to the fund\u2019s latest factsheet, 37 per cent of the firm\u2019s total assets were in private companies at the end of last month. Behind SpaceX, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/us\/news-today\/article\/trump-10bn-fee-tiktok-deal-k8lkzt5pp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ByteDance<\/a> and Stripe were the two largest stakes in private companies, comprising 4.1 per cent and 3.9 per cent of the portfolio respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The share of the portfolio in unquoted firms has also risen as a result of a share buyback programme conducted last year, which was funded by the sale of shares in listed companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX is reported to be lining up a stock market flotation this year, following its merger with xAI in February. If the company does go public this year, that would bring the trust\u2019s exposure to private companies back below the 30 per cent cap.<\/p>\n<p>Business newsletter<\/p>\n<p>The business editor\u2019s exclusive analysis of all the latest financial and economic news.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tSign up with one click<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur role is to be patient, long-term partners to exceptional private companies as they continue to scale,\u201d Tom Slater, fund manager at Scottish Mortgage, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom time to time, market movements can restrict our ability to make further investments in private companies. This proposal gives the board additional flexibility to act in shareholders\u2019 long-term interests by permitting us to support our private holdings when it matters most, while remaining selective about new opportunities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Read, senior analyst at QuotedData, said the proposal was a \u201cpragmatic solution\u201d for Scottish Mortgage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere may be instances where being unable to support subsequent funding rounds could be detrimental, either because value-accretive follow-on investments cannot be made or because SMT\u2019s stake in successful companies could be diluted if it is unable to maintain its position,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is seeking shareholder approval to invest an extra \u00a3250 million in unlisted companies after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-479298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}