Scottish Mortgage's Share Issuance Machine: How a £3 Billion SpaceX Stake Fuels a Premium-Driven Rally

After £3B in buybacks, Scottish Mortgage now issues shares weekly as premium returns. SpaceX stake yields 19x return; trust taps AI infrastructure and younger investors.

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust has executed a dramatic pivot. Two years ago, it was ploughing £3 billion into share buybacks. Today, barely a week passes without the trust printing new shares to meet a surge in investor demand.

The change in sentiment is stark. The trust's shares now trade at a premium to net asset value, reversing the deep discounts of 2022. On 25 May, that premium stood between 2.5% and 6.5% above an estimated NAV of 1,406p. The result: a steady drumbeat of equity issuance. On 18 May, the trust placed 1.2 million new shares at 1,439.50p. Two days later came 2.4 million shares at 1,466p, followed by another 2.25 million on 22 May. Total outstanding shares now hover around 1.1 billion.

The share price has responded accordingly. At roughly 1,498p, Scottish Mortgage has surged more than 140% from its October 2022 trough. On a euro basis, the stock is up nearly 33% year-to-date and recently hit a 52-week high of €18.85 before pulling back about 4%.

The SpaceX Effect: A 19-Fold Return

The single biggest catalyst sits beyond the public markets. SpaceX has ballooned to 19.3% of Scottish Mortgage’s portfolio, representing an estimated £2.98 billion — a roughly 19-times return on the trust’s original investments between 2018 and 2021.

The space is heating up. On 20 May, SpaceX filed paperwork for a stock market listing, targeting a valuation between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion. Should that IPO materialise, the trust’s largest — and previously illiquid — holding would suddenly carry a daily price tag. Adding to the narrative, SpaceX merged with xAI in February 2026, a deal designed to marry satellite hardware with artificial intelligence processing — a theme prominently featured in the listing prospectus.

Beyond SpaceX, Scottish Mortgage’s private equity sleeve — roughly 40% of assets — includes Anthropic and ByteDance. Anthropic, the AI startup, is delivering what management calls unprecedented growth in B2B software. In April, shareholders approved a rule change allowing an additional £250 million to be deployed into private companies.

The Public Side: Arm, Nvidia and the AI Infrastructure Bet

On the listed side, the trust’s exposure to artificial intelligence runs deep. Arm Holdings, the chip designer, jumped nearly 47% in a single week and is up 180% year-to-date. Nvidia, TSMC, Amazon and Meta rank among the largest public positions, with TSMC at 6.5% and Nvidia at 5.6%. ASML accounts for 2.6%. The geographical skew is heavily toward the US and Asia, with nearly 60% of assets in American stocks.

A New Generation of Investors

Research from Invesco offers a clue to the demand surge. Among 25- to 34-year-olds, 55% express interest in investment trusts, and 38% of 18- to 24-year-olds do the same — well above the 29% figure for the general investor population. Scottish Mortgage has become one of the few regulated vehicles offering retail access to late-stage private companies that would otherwise be out of reach.

That demographic shift has helped sustain the premium, enabling the trust to issue shares at a price above net asset value — a virtuous cycle that continues as long as the technology euphoria holds.

Corporate Housekeeping and the Dividend Question

Shareholders are due to gather in Edinburgh for the annual general meeting on 2 July. The agenda includes a final dividend of 2.79p per share, with the ex-dividend date set for 15 June. At a yield of just 0.32%, the payout underscores Scottish Mortgage’s identity as a pure growth vehicle.

Boardroom changes are also afoot. Professor Maxwell is stepping down from the board, with Heather Manners taking his place. The portfolio remains highly concentrated, and the current issuance strategy depends on the prevailing AI optimism. Should sentiment in the technology sector sour, the premium to NAV could evaporate quickly — a risk the trust’s managers are well aware of as they continue to feed the issuance machine.