Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE:SMT), the London-listed technology-focused investment trust, reported a net asset value total return of 31.5% for the six months to 30 September, more than double the FTSE All-World Index's 16.0% return over the same period, driven largely by a surge in its SpaceX holding.
The Baillie Gifford managed trust, which builds long-term growth investments across public and private markets, said its share price total return reached 33.8% over the half year, also well ahead of the index.
Shareholders' funds rose to £17,687.5 million at 30 September, from £13,822.2 million at the end of March, while net asset value per share climbed 31.2% to 1,726.6p on a fair-value basis.
SpaceX was the single largest contributor to performance, adding 8.0 percentage points to returns after the launch and spacecraft company completed what the trust's managers called the largest initial public offering in history in June, seven and a half years after Scottish Mortgage first invested.
The trust trimmed its SpaceX position once lock-ups allowed, as a portfolio management step, as the holding had grown to more than a quarter of the trust's value; at 30 September, SpaceX represented 15% of total assets, and, reduced further to 11.1% by 4 November.
Moderna was the second-largest contributor, adding 4.5 percentage points after its personalised cancer vaccine succeeded in a late-stage melanoma trial in August, a decade after work on it began; the trust has trimmed that holding too, calling its original position too large for an early-stage biotechnology company.
Anthropic contributed 3.4 percentage points and represented 4.0% of total assets at period end, level with ByteDance as the trust's largest private holding; shareholders approved additional private-company investment capacity of up to £250 million at a general meeting in April, which the managers used to add to the Anthropic holding in May.
Private companies made up 24.9% of total assets at 30 September, following SpaceX's flotation out of the unlisted category.
Meanwhile, holdings in PDD, BYD, CATL and MiniMax all weighed on returns as Chinese positions faced tariffs, intense domestic competition and pricing pressure; nevertheless, the trust added to its CATL position regardless, citing a multi-decade opportunity in vehicle, ship and plane electrification.
"We want to be the kind of shareholder that backs companies to do the right thing, even when the market punishes them," said Lawrence Burns of Baillie Gifford, the trust's manager.
Financials and returns
The board declared an interim dividend of 1.80p per share, up from 1.60p a year earlier, and said it intends to deliver a modest increase in the full-year dividend, continuing a progressive policy now in its 43rd consecutive year of increases.
Read more about Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust
- 27/05/26Scottish Mortgage's investment value rockets in run up to SpaceX IPO
- 27/04/26Scottish Mortgage gets a lift to Anthropic valuation
The trust has repurchased more than £4 billion of its own shares since the enhanced buyback programme was announced in March 2024.
Revenue earnings per share rose to 2.25p from 1.55p in the comparable period.
Net gearing fell to 4.3% from 11.0% at the end of March, reflecting portfolio appreciation and debt repayment funded partly by proceeds from reducing the SpaceX stake; cash balances also increased.
The trust also sold its remaining Tesla holding, which it said had returned 13 times the capital invested since its 2013 entry, along with Netflix, Delivery Hero and several other positions, while taking new holdings in private companies Hadrian, ICON and Chai Discovery and adding NVIDIA, SK hynix, KLA and DISCO to its semiconductor exposure.
The discount to net asset value narrowed to 7.9% at 30 September, from 9.5% at the end of March.