Baillie Gifford Says UK Trust Didn’t Cut SpaceX Stake for Merger

Baillie Gifford & Co. pushed back against an attack by activist investor Boaz Weinstein, who’s demanded the Scottish fund house explain why one of its trusts sold down a stake in SpaceX.

London-listed Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust didn’t reduce its holding in Elon Musk’s space company to “facilitate a merger” with another Baillie Gifford trust, the money manager said in an emailed statement Friday. The decision was made in May on “portfolio management grounds including the desire to return capital to shareholders,” the firm said. It added the transaction was executed at the “earliest liquidity opportunity” set ...