Scottish Mortgage’s 75-Billion-Dollar SpaceX IPO Looms as a Liquidity Event — and a Concentration Test

Scottish Mortgage’s NAV jumps on SpaceX’s historic $75B IPO, but its shares lag as a 21% portfolio stake and lock-up rules temper investor enthusiasm.

The Nasdaq debut of SpaceX, scheduled for June 12 under the ticker SPCX, is set to be the largest initial public offering in history, with at least $75 billion in share sales. For Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, which now holds 21% of its portfolio in Elon Musk’s rocket company, the event represents a potential watershed — but the market’s reaction so far has been notably muted. While the trust’s net asset value has surged on the back of the IPO price confirmation, the shares themselves have failed to keep pace, highlighting a growing tension between NAV gains and concentration risk.

On 3 June, Scottish Mortgage reported a net asset value of 1,493.98 pence, reflecting a revaluation of its SpaceX stake after the $135-per-share IPO price was set. That pushed the private-company holding to more than a fifth of total assets, up from 17.9% at the end of April. The trust had already issued 3.85 million new shares at 1,545.42 pence on 2 June — at a premium to NAV — in a sign of strong institutional demand. Yet the German-listed shares slipped 0.69% to €18.00 on the following day, suggesting investors are weighing the upside of the SpaceX windfall against the increased portfolio concentration.

Private investments now account for 41.3% of the trust’s holdings. Besides SpaceX, Scottish Mortgage owns stakes in Stripe (3.7% of the portfolio, with an internal valuation gain of 72.2%), ByteDance (4.8%) and Anthropic (2.6%). Among its listed positions, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and ASML delivered gains of 99.1% and 94.2% respectively, while Meituan fell 48.3%. Over five years, the trust’s annualised profit growth has been 22.5%, nearly double the benchmark’s 11.7%.

One major caveat is the lock-up structure. Large investors face a 366-day selling restriction after the IPO, and other shareholders are bound for 180 days. Until Scottish Mortgage confirms its classification, it cannot freely cash in the estimated $3–4 billion position that has already appreciated 179% over the past year. That delay — combined with the sheer weight of a single private company in the portfolio — explains why the share price has not fully reflected the latest NAV improvement.

At €18.00, the stock now trades about 9% above its 50-day moving average and has gained roughly 30% year to date. The RSI of 59.1 signals room to run before overbought territory, while the 52-week high of €19.50 remains about 8% higher. The trust’s shift from a 10.7% discount a year ago to a current 6.4% premium underscores the market’s changed perception. But whether that premium can hold through the IPO and beyond depends on the balance between realised gains from SpaceX and the discipline of managing a 21% bet on a single counterparty.