Anthropic is giving Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE:SMT) another big technology investment to watch as the Claude developer prepares for a stock market debut, although growing investor unease over AI valuations threatens its November timetable.
Its stake in the frontier AI lab contributed 3.4 percentage points to the trust’s half-year returns and ended September at 4% of total assets.
It follows a sizeable payday from SpaceX, whose June flotation helped make it Scottish Mortgage’s biggest contributor over the six months, adding 8 percentage points to returns. The managers subsequently reduced a position that had grown beyond a quarter of the portfolio, taking its weighting to 15% at September-end and 11.1% by 4 November.
The managers also closed the book on Tesla, selling the remaining holding after an investment dating back to 2013 returned 13 times the capital committed.
Together, those moves capture the Baillie Gifford-managed trust’s approach. The UK-listed trust backs businesses before they reach public markets, stays invested through years of development, then takes money off the table as positions mature or become too large.
Anthropic is now approaching its public-market test. The AI developer filed its prospectus on 26 October and intends to list on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, although it has yet to confirm an offer price or listing date.
The timing has become more difficult in recent days.
Reports on Thursday, carried by Reuters, claimed potential investors were questioning the implied valuation of around $1.5 trillion. It also remains to be seen whether a planned investor roadshow will proceed next week, following this week's sharp AI and tech sector sell-off.
Big Anthropic forecasts
Anthropic’s updated IPO filings showed quarterly revenue of about $17 billion, but also a $23.3 billion net loss. Its commitments to computing capacity and infrastructure totalled $895.4 billion, including $70 billion due over the next 12 months, according to Associated Press.
For Scottish Mortgage, the exposure is already meaningful. Anthropic ranked alongside ByteDance as its largest private holding at September-end. The managers added to the investment in May after shareholders approved up to £250 million of additional private-company investment capacity.
The stock market float, assuming it proceeds, will provide more than a new valuation marker, it will also create the opportunity for the trust's investment managers to proactively manage its holdings in the AI lab.
Across the portfolio
The broader portfolio delivered a net asset value total return of 31.5% in the six months to 30 September, comfortably ahead of the FTSE All-World Index’s 16%.
Shareholders received a 33.8% share-price total return, while shareholders’ funds climbed to £17.69 billion from £13.82 billion.
The gains were not all about AI and rockets.
Moderna contributed 4.5 percentage points after a successful late-stage melanoma vaccine trial, although Chinese holdings including PDD, BYD and CATL weighed on performance.
Scottish Mortgage also added semiconductor exposure through NVIDIA, SK hynix, KLA and DISCO.
Net gearing fell to 4.3% from 11%, helped by debt repayments partly funded from SpaceX sales.
The board raised the interim dividend to 1.80p from 1.60p and intends to deliver a modest increase in the full-year payout.
