Scottish Mortgage: A Jobs Report, a SpaceX Listing, and the AGM That Could Redefine the Trust

Scottish Mortgage enters AGM with 41.4% in private holdings, SpaceX at 21% of portfolio, and a vote to permanently lift the 30% unlisted cap after shares fell 5% in a week.

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust enters its annual general meeting on 2 July with a portfolio more tilted toward private companies than ever, a share price that has just shed 5% in a week, and a SpaceX holding that has become both its crown jewel and a source of strategic tension. The vote will determine whether the manager, Baillie Gifford, can permanently exceed the self-imposed 30% cap on unlisted holdings — a limit it has already blown past.

The immediate trigger for the recent sell-off was a US jobs report that landed like a cold shower. On 5 June, data showed 172,000 new positions created in May, nearly double the consensus estimate. The Nasdaq plunged 4.2% — its worst single-day performance since April 2025 — while the S&P 500 lost 2.6%, the steepest drop since October. For a trust built on long-duration growth stocks and unlisted unicorns, the message was clear: a red-hot labour market leaves the Federal Reserve little room to cut rates, with the implied probability of a December 2026 rate hike now above 80%. Higher discount rates compress the valuations of precisely the kind of early-stage companies Scottish Mortgage favours.

Just a week later, on 12 June, SpaceX finally made its stock market debut under the ticker SPCX, priced at $135 a share. That valued Elon Musk’s rocket company at around $1.77 trillion. The offering of 555.6 million new shares, led by Goldman Sachs, was expected to raise roughly $75 billion. Scottish Mortgage’s shares jumped 5% on the day, but the relief was short-lived: by the end of the week the stock had retreated to €16.12, leaving the trust nursing a weekly loss of nearly 5%.

SpaceX now accounts for 21% of the portfolio — roughly £3.5 billion — after Baillie Gifford raised its internal valuation to $1.6 trillion, the third upgrade in six months. Yet those gains are largely unbankable. Fund manager Tom Slater noted that a listing “only changes the trading venue” and that the investment thesis remains unchanged. But as is standard with IPOs, early backers face a lock-up period of typically 90 to 180 days. Baillie Gifford has yet to confirm how long Scottish Mortgage’s restriction lasts or whether different conditions apply to it compared with other early-stage investors. Until that lock-up lifts, the paper weight of the SpaceX stake is effectively untouchable.

That constraint adds significance to the AGM agenda. Private, non-listed holdings have swollen to 41.4% of the portfolio, up from 27.5% a year ago. The board is asking shareholders to approve a permanent waiver of the 30% ceiling, having already secured a temporary exemption in April that allowed additional investments of up to £250 million above the threshold. Also on the ballot are authorisations to buy back up to 14.99% of outstanding shares, but only when the market price trades below net asset value, and a final dividend of 2.97 pence per share, bringing the full-year payout to 4.57 pence — a 4.3% increase and the 43rd consecutive year of dividend growth.

The trust’s buyback policy has already shifted. On 8 June, it repurchased 800,000 shares at 1,436.86 pence, roughly 40 pence below the NAV of 1,475.91 pence. The move came under a freshly tightened rule that restricts repurchases to periods of a discount. Only weeks earlier, on 1 and 2 June, Scottish Mortgage had been issuing shares — 2.35 million at 1,516.50 pence and then 3.85 million at 1,545.42 pence — a rapid pivot from net issuer to net buyer that underscores the volatility in supply and demand for the trust’s stock.

Institutional investors appear undeterred. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management crossed the 3% threshold on 28 May, now holding 33.6 million shares and a 3.02% voting stake. That vote of confidence comes as retail sellers have been thinning out, and the trust’s relative strength index of 37.5 suggests it is nearing oversold territory.

Longer-term, the numbers remain compelling. In the financial year to March 2026, net asset value rose 27.4% and the share price delivered a total return of 26.8%. Over ten years, NAV has climbed 435.2%, nearly double the FTSE All-World’s 233.9%. There is also a potential catalyst on the horizon: Anthropic, the artificial intelligence developer in which Scottish Mortgage holds a 2.6% stake, has confidentially filed an IPO prospectus with the SEC. Its annualised revenue is closing in on $30 billion, and a successful flotation would bolster the trust’s thesis for betting on private markets.

Despite the recent pullback, the shares are still up roughly 16% year to date, though they sit 17% below the May high of €19.50. The AGM on 2 July will decide just how far the trust can stretch its private-market exposure — and, by extension, how deeply its fortunes will be tied to SpaceX and its unlisted peers.