Baillie Gifford’s flagship investment trust company, the £15.5 billion Scottish Mortgage fund, on Friday reported a 22.9% rise in Net Asset Value (NAV) for the six months to September 30, 2025, ahead of the FTSE All-World Index’s 15.4% gain.

The Edinburgh-based investment trust company’s share price increased by 20.9% over the period.

Scottish Mortgage manager Tom Slater said: “This period’s strongest returns came from companies building real capabilities across a wide range of sectors and geographies.

“It has become increasingly clear that the forces reshaping the global economy, from artificial intelligence to digital commerce and electrification, are not confined to any one country or industry.

“Our top contributors reflected this global diversity.”

Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust plc is a constituent of the FTSE 100, with a stock market value of about £12.2 billion. It is the second-biggest plc run from Scotland, after SSE.

The investment fund said its strongest contributors over the six months spanned four key themes:

• Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure: ASML, TSMC and NVIDIA “benefited from surging investment in computing power.” Cloudflare and Snowflake also gained “as enterprises upgraded digital architecture to support distributed workloads and AI-enhanced applications.”
• Digital Platforms & Content: Roblox, Meta, Spotify and Netflix “saw improved user engagement and monetisation.” Slater noted that long-term investment in product and network effects “is now translating into scalable, resilient business models.”
• Commerce & Logistics Ecosystems: MercadoLibre, SEA, Shopify and Doordash “delivered improved profitability and capital efficiency.” Scottish Mortgage said these players are building integrated ecommerce and fintech ecosystems in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
• Electrification & Clean Energy: CATL and Tesla contributed positively amid global electrification trends. Their deep vertical integration and global reach “remain key strategic advantages.”

Scottish Mortgage said it added several new investments to its portfolio of companies “aligned with long-term shifts in technology, consumer behaviour and energy.” These included:

• Figma – a collaborative design platform used by global teams.
• AppLovin – a mobile app advertising technology.
• Xiaohongshu – a Chinese lifestyle and social commerce platform.
• CATL – the world’s largest battery maker.
• Anthropic – developer of advanced AI models.

Slater emphasised the importance of investing in private companies including Anthropic and Xiaohongshu, which are at the forefront of AI and next-generation internet platforms.

“While inflation and interest rates have stabilised, geopolitical tensions persist,” said Scottish Mortgage.

Slater believes the most important shifts are occurring not in policy corridors but in labs, datacentres and factories.

Slater said: “Periods of strong performance are welcome, but they do not change our approach. We are not chasing short-term trends or market approval.

“We are long-term owners, focused on identifying the exceptional few companies that can deliver transformational outcomes over decades.”

Scottish Mortgage has proposed an unchanged interim dividend of 1.60p per share. The fund has increased its annual dividend for 43 consecutive years. “The board expects to declare an increased final dividend to maintain this status and continue this important trend,” said the company.