Scottish Mortgage’s SpaceX Lock-Up: A Staggered Exit Strategy as Shares Climb to New Highs

SpaceX's multi-tiered lock-up gives Scottish Mortgage a path to liquidity. The trust trades at a premium but faces NAV volatility as SpaceX goes public.

The finer print of SpaceX’s impending IPO reveals a lock-up arrangement that is anything but conventional. For Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, the largest single private-market bet in its portfolio, the structure matters more than the headline valuation. Instead of a single hard freeze on share sales, SpaceX is applying a multi-tiered release schedule that gives existing investors like Scottish Mortgage a controlled path to liquidity.

The first tranche unlocks after the second quarter of 2026, permitting up to 20% of the restricted stock to be sold. An additional 10% becomes tradable if the share price trades at least 30% above the IPO price. Further tranches follow: 28% after Q3 2026, then 7% each at 70, 90, 105, 120 and 135 days, with full freedom arriving around mid-to-late December 2026 after a 180-day lock-up. For Scottish Mortgage’s management, the ability to gradually reduce a position that accounted for 19.3% of the portfolio — valued at £2.98 billion as of March 31 — is a critical lever to manage concentration risk.

The market has already priced in anticipation. On Friday, Scottish Mortgage shares closed at €17.93, a new 52-week high. The stock has gained 29.12% since the start of the year and 9.06% over the past month. Trading at a premium to its net asset value — a rarity among UK investment trusts, most of which languish at discounts — the trust currently sits 13.83% above its 50-day moving average. The relative strength index stands at 40.6, suggesting no sign of overbought conditions despite the rally.

SpaceX itself is targeting a blockbuster debut in June 2026. Media reports peg the potential market capitalisation at up to $1.75 trillion, with around $75 billion in fresh capital to be raised. That headline figure, however, sits above Scottish Mortgage’s own conservative estimate. The trust values its SpaceX stake at $1.25 trillion, based on verifiable transactions rather than market rumours. The discrepancy underscores the challenge of pricing private companies ahead of a public listing.

Once SpaceX becomes a publicly traded stock, its daily price will feed directly into Scottish Mortgage’s net asset value. That will introduce greater visible volatility in the NAV — a welcome feature if the stock surges, but a source of pressure if the market mark-down proves sharper than the trust’s internal valuation. With private holdings making up 41.6% of the overall portfolio, the transition of SpaceX from illiquid asset to liquid equity marks a pivotal shift in the trust’s risk profile.

Elsewhere, the trust’s exposure to capital-intensive Artificial Intelligence plays remains substantial. Anthropic, a portfolio holding, is reportedly planning annual spending of $15 billion on data-centre capacity by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s own operational picture is mixed: Starlink revenues have exploded on rising subscriber numbers, but heavy investment in the xAI venture and new infrastructure pushed the overall annual result deep into the red. For Scottish Mortgage, the near-term profitability of these bets is secondary to long-term value creation.

Back in the UK, the local economic backdrop offers little tailwind. Government borrowing climbed sharply in April, while new packaging taxes risk stoking food inflation. Such domestic headwinds stand in sharp contrast to the rapid growth of the US technology holdings that dominate the portfolio. The trust’s global remit allows it to sidestep much of the British drag, but the macro environment still influences investor sentiment and the trust’s premium or discount relative to NAV.

The coming weeks are sparse in terms of corporate events — the annual general meeting is scheduled for July 2 in Edinburgh — but heavy on macro data. US initial jobless claims, a second estimate of first-quarter GDP, and durable-goods orders are due. European inflation and labour-market readings from several large economies will also land. For a trust packed with growth-sensitive technology and private-market names, interest-rate expectations and risk appetite are powerful swing factors.

For now, the countdown to SpaceX’s formal price-discovery process remains the dominant catalyst. As the IPO draws nearer, adjustments to the trust’s NAV and the behaviour of its market premium will reflect the market’s appetite for the world’s most valuable private space company. The laddered lock-up ensures that even after the listing, Scottish Mortgage can unwind its outsized bet at a measured pace — a structural advantage that few of its peers can claim.