Scottish Mortgage Faces a Packed Week: Ex-Dividend Deadline Meets SpaceX's Market Debut

Scottish Mortgage Trust's ex-dividend date and SpaceX IPO this week. A 21% SpaceX stake could boost NAV, but high private exposure adds interest rate risk.

The Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust is navigating one of its most eventful 48-hour stretches in recent memory. Thursday marks the stock's ex-dividend date, effectively closing the window for income-seeking investors to lock in the next payout. Hard on its heels comes Friday's highly anticipated initial public offering of SpaceX, a holding that now dominates the trust's portfolio at a valuation of roughly £3.5 billion.

Baillie Gifford, Scottish Mortgage's fund manager, recently revalued its SpaceX stake, pushing the holding to 21% of total assets. That is a marked increase from an earlier estimate of around 18%, reflecting growing confidence in Elon Musk's private space venture. The IPO price has been set at $135 per share. Once trading begins, the market will immediately recalculate the trust's net asset value, making Friday a potential catalyst for further price action.

Private-Market Dependence and Portfolio Breakdown

The SpaceX bet is just one piece of a deliberate strategy that leans heavily on unlisted companies. Private holdings now represent roughly 41% of the portfolio. Alongside SpaceX, the trust has major positions in ByteDance, the owner of TikTok; Stripe, the payments processor; and other high-profile names such as Anthropic, an artificial intelligence firm, and the fintech Revolut.

On the public side, semiconductor giants lead the charge. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company accounts for 6.5% of assets, while ASML and Nvidia round out the top holdings. The approach has paid off handsomely: through the end of March, Scottish Mortgage delivered a total return of over 27%, comfortably beating its global benchmark.

Dividend Cut-Off and Recent Share Buyback

For investors chasing the upcoming dividend, Thursday is the final day to buy shares with entitlement. The stock itself has been trading at €16.82, a slight 0.1% dip on the day, bringing its weekly decline to around 6%. However, the longer view is brighter: since January 2025, the share price has climbed more than 21%, though it remains nearly 14% below its May 52-week high of €19.50. Technical indicators such as the relative strength index point to a neutral market for now.

Trust management has also been signalling confidence through a share buyback programme. Earlier this week, Scottish Mortgage repurchased 800,000 of its own shares at exactly 1,436.86 pence each. Those shares will be held in treasury.

Interest Rate Sensitivity and Valuation Risk

The heavy exposure to unquoted growth companies brings its own set of headaches. High interest rates tend to compress valuations in that space, and any broad markdown would feed straight into the trust's net asset value. With a market capitalisation of roughly £15.8 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.1, Scottish Mortgage is not cheap by conventional metrics, but the real risk lies in a correction among its private holdings.

As the SpaceX IPO nears and the ex-dividend date passes, the trust's shares will face a test of whether the market has fully priced in the potential for both a windfall from the listing and the lingering macro headwinds.