ADVERTORIAL FEATURE
Buying into private companies
The value of an investment , and any income from it , can fall as well as rise and investors may not get back the amount invested .
In 1996 there were over 8,000 companies listed on US stock markets . Twenty years later , that number had almost halved . More companies are choosing to stay private . Baillie Gifford has over $ 10bn of assets invested in private companies , and a further $ 20bn of assets in public companies that we first invested in when they were private . The list of the unlisted includes some of the most innovative companies in the world : in the US they include SpaceX , the advanced rockets and spacecraft firm founded by Elon
Musk ; and Epic Games , the firm behind the hit video game Fortnite . In China they include ByteDance , owners of TikTok , the most downloaded app in 2021 . The fact that so many startups are staying private for longer gives Peter Singlehurst ’ s private companies team plenty to choose from . Singlehurst suggests founders now understand that staying private allows management to maintain focus and gain a competitive edge : “ They can maintain a small , concentrated , aligned group of shareholders , focus on their operations and the long-term vision ,” he says . “ Everything else being equal , they can build better businesses by staying private for longer , with higher probabilities of success .” Investing in high-growth private companies can make Baillie Gifford a better public market investor , by helping the firm make betterinformed decisions for clients . It ’ s one reason why private companies have become a key area for Baillie Gifford , since the first investment in Alibaba by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust in 2012 . Previously , investors scoured stock markets for promising companies . Now more
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