By Andrew Bary
Baron Capital is one of the largest holders of SpaceX stock in the mutual fund industry and the firm wrote up the value of that stake a week before the coming IPO pricing, expected on Thursday.
The $17 billion Baron Partners fund and the $3.7 billion Baron Asset both got big gains last Thursday -- almost 7% and 8%, respectively. As of March 31, Baron Partners had nearly 30% of its assets in SpaceX and Baron Asset had 23%.
The firm had said on its website that the SpaceX shares would be repriced on June 4, last Thursday.
There is no other holding within those funds that could have accounted for such a move. Tesla, which is the No. 2 holding in Baron Partners, was down on Thursday and the S&P 500 index rose less than 0.5%.
Baron Capital didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Partners fund was carrying its SpaceX stock at about $105 a share on March 31, compared with the planned IPO price of $135. The March 31 value appears to be the latest public mark on the SpaceX stock by the firm.
A gain of more than 25% from the March 31 valuation to the IPO price of $135 would be consistent with the gain in the value of Partners on Thursday. The Baron funds appear to have boosted the value of their SpaceX preferred by a similar percentage relative to the March 31 valuations.
The Baron funds own both SpaceX common stock and preferred stock, which was converted into common stock as part of the IPO process.
Thursday's gains came a day after SpaceX filed its updated prospectus, which included the $135 targeted IPO price. They have helped the Partners fund's performance, which is now up 4% this year. The Baron Asset fund is up 1% so far in 2026.
Even with the SpaceX gains, though, the funds are behind the S&P 500, which is up about 9% year this year.
Some investors had been buying the SpaceX-heavy Baron funds recently as a play on Musk's company. They got rewarded on Thursday.
Ron Baron, the Baron funds founder and portfolio co-manager of Baron Partners fund, is a big fan of Elon Musk and was an early investor in both Musk's Tesla and SpaceX.
In a presentation on the firm's website last week, Baron said the firm had invested $2 billion in SpaceX since 2017 by buying stock at periodic sales by insiders and had a profit of $12 billion to $13 billion.
He made a point of saying he's bullish on the prospects for SpaceX's satellite internet service, Starlink, which has 12 million subscribers.
Baron said he thinks SpaceX valuation is heading much higher from the expected value of close to $2 trillion at the IPO.
"It will become the largest and most profitable company on the planet.," he said, adding that it could hit a $10 trillion to $30 trillion valuation in 10 to 15 years.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 08, 2026 13:50 ET (17:50 GMT)
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