Saba Capital and the Baillie Gifford-run Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) are at loggerheads again, a year after the activist first tried to oust its directors and replace them with its preferred alternatives. This time, a lot of focus has been on EWI's stake in SpaceX, where it recently sold down a large chunk of its holding a few months before a large increase in the company's valuation. Here, we look at the history of SpaceX in the various Baillie Gifford trusts that have invested in it. At $800bn, SpaceX is the world's most highly valued private company, and it is rumoured to be targeting an IPO ...
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Baillie Gifford China Growth (ticker: BGCG) was launched in 1907, and was known as F&C Pacific from 1984 to 2005 and then Witan Pacific from 2005 to 2020, before deciding to ditch its wider regional brief to focus on Chinese stocks. Its share price soared for the first six months under Baillie Gifford, with high investor demand causing its shares to trade at a large premium. But Chinese regulatory crackdowns and sluggish economic growth caused a savage reversal and resulted in a share price drawdown of over 70% by the end of 2023. After three years of underperforming its benchmark, BGCG ou...
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Scottish American (ticker: SAIN), commonly abbreviated to SAINTS, was established in 1873 and is classified in the Global Equity Income sector. It has been managed by Baillie Gifford since 2004, but unlike most other Baillie Gifford funds, SAINTS looks for resilient income stocks rather than disruptive growth companies. What's more, around 10% of its portfolio consists of UK direct property holdings, with a similar amount of long-term debt providing structural gearing. SAINTS has raised its dividend for each of the last 51 years and hasn't cut its dividend since 1938. Although its current yiel...
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UPDATE: In April 2026, Joe Faraday succeeded Stephen Paice and Chris Davies as the trust's portfolio manager. The growth focus of the mandate is to continue "whilst aiming to deliver a more diversified portfolio that captures growth opportunities across a wider range of sectors."
Baillie Gifford European Growth (ticker: BGEU) was launched in 1972 as F&C Eurotrust. It was run by Foreign & Colonial up until early 2010, before Edinburgh Partners was appointed in its place, and the company became known as The European Investment Trust. It outperformed in the first part of the 2010s but th...
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Schiehallion (ticker: MNTN) was launched in 2019 when it raised $477m at $1.00 per share. It raised an additional $40m from regular issuance between June 2020 and March 2021, then a further $700m from a C share issue in April 2021. Baillie Gifford's Peter Singlehurst has been its lead manager since it joined the market. MNTN is a 'crossover' fund, meaning that it buys stakes in unquoted growth companies, but it is happy to keep holding should they become listed. To date, MNTN has invested in around 50 companies, several of which have had IPOs, and it currently has holdings in six of the world’...
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Baillie Gifford US Growth (ticker: USA) was launched at 100p in March 2018, and it employs Baillie Gifford's distinctive growth style with the ability to hold up to 50% of its portfolio in unquoted companies. The shares rose about 50% over the first two years but then surged from 150p to nearly 400p by early 2021. The shares trod water during the rest of 2021 but then sank as low as 140p and a discount of up to 25% during 2023 as interest rates moved higher and inflation took hold. Saba Capital disclosed a 5% stake in August 2023, and in December 2024, USA was one of seven trusts where it requ...
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UPDATE: Brian Lum took over from Praveen Kumar as lead manager in May 2025.
Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon (BGS) was launched in 1985 to invest in Japanese smaller companies. It caught the tail end of the 1980s boom in Japanese stocks and then endured a volatile two decades as the bubble steadily deflated. In the twelve years following the financial crisis, BGS produced an astonishing 18-fold gain but since 2021 it has significantly underperformed its benchmark and its shares have more than halved as investors turned away from Baillie Gifford's distinctive style of growth investing. BGS traded ...
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UPDATE: In April 2026, at the third attempt, Saba succeeded in ousting the directors of Edinburgh Worldwide, replacing them with its own preferred candidates. The new board is consulting with shareholders and planning a liquidity opportunity close to NAV following the orderly realisation of the holding in SpaceX. Edinburgh Worldwide (EWI) was launched in 1998 as a reconstruction vehicle for a previous fund that dated back to 1896. Baillie Gifford was appointed as manager in 2003, first running EWI under its Long Term Global Growth strategy before switching to global small-caps in early ...
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UPDATE: Scottish Mortgage has continued to bounce back since June 2024, with SpaceX becoming its largest holding, and its share price touching the level it hit in late 2021. The NAV total return for the year to March 2025 was 11%, followed by 27% for the year to March 2026. In early 2026, it asked shareholders to give it more flexibility regarding the level of its private investments, but this concern has since lessened due to the IPO of SpaceX.
Scottish Mortgage (ticker: SMT) was founded in 1909 and has been managed by Baillie Gifford throughout its existence. For the last several decades, i...
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Pacific Horizon (ticker: PHI) was launched in 1989 by a small boutique called Tyndall Funds which was soon afterwards acquired by Jupiter. The trust had a poor first few years, resulting in Baillie Gifford being appointed as its investment manager in 1992. Baillie Gifford still runs the trust today with Roderick Snell as the lead manager. Pacific Horizon invests across the whole of Asia but, in common with its benchmark, it is heavily weighted towards China and India. While it invests across the market cap spectrum, there is a tilt towards smaller companies along with the usual growth bias fav...
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