Scottish Mortgage's IPO Bonanza Lures Japanese Institutional Stake as Share Price Stalls

Japanese asset manager raises voting rights amid SpaceX's $1.6T valuation and Anthropic's IPO filing, as Scottish Mortgage shares dip despite strong portfolio gains.

Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management has boosted its voting rights in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust to 3.02%, a filing on June 3 confirmed. The Japanese giant crossed the threshold on May 28, just as the Baillie Gifford-run trust's portfolio swells on the back of a planned SpaceX listing and a confidential IPO filing by AI developer Anthropic. The move signals that deep-pocketed institutional investors see long-term value even as the trust’s own equity struggles to hold recent gains.

SpaceX remains the dominant engine. The rocket builder now accounts for 21% of the trust’s assets — a position worth roughly £3.5 billion — after Baillie Gifford raised its internal valuation to $1.6 trillion, the third upgrade in six months. The IPO, slated for June 12 under the ticker SPCX, has drawn astonishing demand: investors have placed orders worth around $150 billion for an offering seeking $75–86 billion, implying a two-times oversubscription. The target market capitalisation of $1.75–1.77 trillion would make SpaceX the seventh most valuable company in America. Morgan Stanley sees annual revenue hitting $3.4 trillion by 2040.

That bullish catalyst, however, has done little to prop up Scottish Mortgage’s own shares. On Friday the stock dropped 4.44% to €17.11, dragging the week’s loss to 5.37%. The price now sits roughly 12% below its all-time high of €19.50, set on May 25 – the same day the trust tapped its treasury for the first of two consecutive share issuances. On June 1 it placed 2.35 million shares, followed by 3.85 million the next day, both at a premium to net asset value. The capital-raising underscores strong underlying demand for the trust’s exposure to unlisted tech giants, even as secondary-market sentiment turns cautious.

The trust’s overall portfolio value has jumped 42% over the past six months to £16.9 billion, propelled by revaluations of its top private holdings. Year-to-date the stock is still up 23.15%, despite the recent pullback. That resilience owes much to another IPO candidate: Anthropic. The AI company, in which Scottish Mortgage holds a 2.6% stake, has confidentially filed an S-1 registration. Its latest funding round valued it at $965 billion – surpassing rival OpenAI’s $852 billion – and its Claude models are adding over one million users daily. Amazon, also an Anthropic investor, reported pre-tax earnings of $16.8 billion from the stake in the first quarter of 2026, hinting at the latent value Scottish Mortgage may eventually unlock.

The paradox of strong portfolio news and weak share performance reflects a broader strain on private-equity investment vehicles. Rivals such as Partners Group and Blackstone have imposed redemption limits to stem outflows. Scottish Mortgage is taking the opposite approach, funnelling its largest private positions into public markets. The June 12 SpaceX debut will be the first major test of whether that strategy can close the gap between the trust’s growing intrinsic worth and a market that, for now, remains sceptical.