The Ledger
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Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford expects 5x ByteDance return despite US TikTok ban
“I mean, like, our base case is that it does get banned, and we still see a path. After making at least five times our money, even with TikTok not being part of that investment case.”
Singlehurst: Stripe trades at a lower multiple than Adyen while growing faster
“Stripe is priced even, even less than Adyen. If you just look at it on a multiples basis, and it's growing quicker.”
Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford deployed $10B across 100 private companies with one bankruptcy
“Over the last 10 years, we've deployed something like ten billion dollars into about a hundred private companies. We've had one bankruptcy of a company which is nothing to be proud of for sure, but I think we thought it was going to be much higher than it was.”
Singlehurst: Uninformed investors will create hardship for startups in downturns
“I think the sad thing about that is the people that will suffer from that is, is the companies themselves, because they will have ended up with shareholders who don't fully understand what it is they've invested in. And that's kind of fine when everything's go…”
Singlehurst: Pre-AI companies with hard-to-replicate products will remain exceptional
“I think there's a possibility of that, but I would say that there will still be companies that, that are from that sort of pre AI era that will still be exceptional companies because they have a particular way of building a product that is just very difficult …”
Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford will always invest at 30-50% chance of 5x
“If something is in the range of 30 to 50% probability of going up fivefold, well then we'll take those bets every time.”
Singlehurst: ByteDance will eventually go public in Hong Kong or US
“I think it'll be public at some point. I think either in the US or Hong Kong, obviously one of those is probably a little bit more likely than the other.”
Singlehurst: Private company secondary exchanges will not work
“I don't think we'll end up in a world where you have sort of exchanges for private companies. I think you just have too much complexity in the share class structures. You have, you know, things like rofers, you have like company control. I can't see those exch…”
Singlehurst: Active growth-stage private market participants have consolidated since 2020-2021
“But I think there are fewer participants in the growth stage today than there was in 2020 and 20 21. And you could say, well, those are anomalous years, but I actually, I still think there has been consolidation within the growth stage of the private market.”
Singlehurst: Consistent institutional growth investors won't double or triple in number
“But, you know, I think we're already at the stage where there are a handful at the growth stage of, you know, let's call it 10, maybe you get to 20, of institutions that are consistent presences in this part of the market. And I could probably name you those. …”
Singlehurst: Rapid 2021 funding rounds prevented proper due diligence
“I mean, I think the way it really changed things, particularly last year, was it changed the time frames that rounds were happening in. So we were seeing rounds happening last year at speeds that certainly wouldn't have enabled us to do our necessarily diligen…”
Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford models a 5x base upside for every investment
“So we are very consistent in how we model upside for every company we look at. We try to model to a five times upside.”
Singlehurst: Random stock selection yields a 5% probability of 5x returns
“The probability of any given company going up five times, if you were just picking randomly, is something like five percent.”
Singlehurst: US Series C+ valuation multiples remain elevated despite post-2021 drop
“If you look at the data multiples in series C and beyond in the U.S. Are below twenty-twenty-one, but still at elevated levels.”
Singlehurst: ByteDance leads online ads and ranks third in Chinese e-commerce
“They're the market leader in online advertising in China. And I think at the moment they're about number three in e-commerce in China.”
Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford requires 5x upside to double down on follow-ons
“So if you're going to double down on a company, then absolutely. Yeah. You need to see a five X on a reinvestment.”
Singlehurst: Growth-stage venture-backed companies are at an all-time high
“There have never been so many venture backed companies that are sort of entering our part of the market.”
Singlehurst: Baillie Gifford investment teams do not use Bloomberg terminals
“You won't see a single Bloomberg terminal on the desks of investment teams.”
Singlehurst: Scottish Mortgage Fund is a century-old permanent pool
“We started, we set off doing that from within a permanent pool of capital that we've managed for the last 114 years. Called the Scottish mortgage funds, confusingly named. It's got nothing to do with mortgages. It's a hundred year plus permanent pool of capita…”