Tracking Baillie Gifford’s 13F Portfolio – Q1 2022 Update

This article is first in a series that provides an ongoing analysis of the changes made to Baillie Gifford’s 13F portfolio on a quarterly basis. It is based on their regulatory 13F Form filed on 5/5/2022.

Baillie Gifford was founded more than a century ago in 1907. It is one of the oldest investment firms and is wholly owned by 51 individual partners. The lack of external shareholders is a competitive advantage as they can stick to their long-term focus without pressure from shareholders. Their long-term bottom-up investment approach is based on the philosophy that sustained growth in company profits leads to higher share prices over time.

Assets Under Management (AuM) is at around $365B. Around 40% of it is invested in US listed 13F securities with the rest invested globally in equities and debt. The overall portfolio is diversified with over 1000 13F securities. 59 of those positions are significantly large (more than ~0.5% of the portfolio) and they are the focus of this article.

This quarter, Baillie Gifford’s 13F portfolio decreased ~22% from $182B to $143B. The number of holdings decreased from 1177 to 1168. The top three holdings are at ~18% while the top five holdings are close to ~27% of the 13F assets: Tesla Motors, Moderna, Illumina, Amazon.com, and MercadoLibre.

Note: Although the following positions are really small compared to the overall size of the portfolio, it is significant that they have sizable ownership stakes: 10x Genomics (TXG), Allbirds (BIRD), Appian Corporation (APPN), Axon Enterprise (AXON), Affirm Holdings (AFRM), Abiomed (ABMD), Alnylam Pharma (ALNY), Adaptimmune Therapeutics (ADAP), Burning Rock Biotech (BNR), Beyond Meat (BYND), Carvana (CVNA), Copa Holdings (CPA), Coursera (COUR), Chewy (CHWY), Codexis (CDXS), Cloudflare (NET), Chegg (CHGG), Certara (CERT), Denali Therapeutics (DNLI), DexCom (DXCM), Digimarc (DMRC), Duolingo (DUOL), EverQuote (EVER), Farfetch Ltd. (FTCH), Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA), HashiCorp (HCP), HUYA Inc. (HUYA), Jumia Technologies (JMIA), Lilium (LILM), LendingTree (TREE), Lemonade (LMND), Martin Marietta Materials (MLM), NIO Inc. (NIO), NuCana (NCNA), Oscar Health (OSCR), Pacira BioSciences (PCRX), Peloton Interactive (PTON), Recursion Pharma (RXRX), Redfin (RDFN), STAAR Surgical (STAA), Spotify, Stericycle (SRCL), The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC), The Trade Desk (TTD), Teladoc (TDOC), Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), Vroom, Inc. (VRM), Vimeo (VMEO), Wayfair (W), Watsco (WSO), Warby Parker (WRBY), Wix.com Ltd. (WIX), Zai Lab Limited (ZLAB), and Zillow Group (Z).

Stake Increases:

Illumina Inc. (ILMN): The ILMN stake goes back over a decade to 2011 when a large 13.5M shares stake was built at prices between ~$25 and ~$75 per share. The period through 2020 saw a ~50% stake increase through incremental buying at higher prices. The stock currently trades at ~$193. Last five quarters have seen only minor adjustments.

Note: they have a ~13% ownership stake in the business.

MercadoLibre, Inc. (MELI): MELI position goes back to 2010 when a 2.25M share stake was built at prices between ~$35 and ~$73. The position size peaked at 6.56M shares in 2014. The stake increase happened at prices between ~$60 and ~$140. Since then, the position had seen trimming in most years. Last three quarters have seen a ~10% increase at prices between ~$882 and ~$1954. The stock currently trades at ~$714.

Note: they have a ~10% ownership stake in the business.

Spotify Technology S.A. (SPOT): The original SPOT position goes back to a Series G funding round in 2015 when the company was valued at ~$8B. They had an IPO in 2018. Shares started trading at ~$150 and currently goes for ~$105. The valuation is now at ~$17B. H2 2019 saw a ~25% stake increase at prices between ~$112 and ~$157. Since then, the activity has been minor. There was a ~5% increase this quarter.

Note: they have a ~11.5% ownership stake in the business.

DexCom Inc. (DXCM): A minutely small stake in DXCM was first purchased in 2012. The stake remained small till 2016 when a substantial ~6.1M share position was built in the low-20s price range. The period through 2019 saw the stake reduced to ~4.8M shares through periodic selling. Recent activity follows. There was a ~30% stake increase in Q4 2020 at prices between ~$79 and ~$103. Q4 2021 saw a ~16% reduction at prices between ~$130 and ~$163. The stock currently trades at $78.46. There was a marginal increase this quarter.

Note: they have a ~4.5% ownership stake in the business.

Ferrari N.V. (RACE): RACE was a ~18M shares stake that was established in 2016 at prices between $34 and $58. The period through 2020 saw the stake reduced to ~13.5M shares at higher prices. Recent activity follows. There was a ~15% selling in Q2 2021 at prices between ~$199 and ~$217. The stock currently trades at ~$190.

Sea Ltd. (SE): SE became a substantial stake in the portfolio in Q1 2020 when around 6M shares were purchased at prices between ~$38 and ~$52. The quarters since had seen only minor activity. This quarter saw a ~75% stake increase at prices between ~$88 and ~$223. The stock currently trades at $75.34.

Coupang, Inc. (CPNG): CPNG had an IPO in Q1 2021. Shares started trading at ~$48 and currently goes for ~$16. The 1.37% of the portfolio stake was built over the last five quarters through consistent buying at prices between ~$17.50 and ~$48.50.

Atlassian Corp. (TEAM): A large ~10.2M share stake in TEAM was built in 2016 at prices between ~$20 and ~$32. The period through 2020 saw a roughly one-third reduction through periodic selling at higher prices. Last four quarters had also seen a ~14% trimming at prices between ~$213 and ~$458. The stock is now at ~$208 and the stake is at 1.17% of the portfolio. There was a marginal increase this quarter.

10X Genomics, Affirm Holdings, BioNTech (BNTX), DoorDash Inc. (DASH), Farfetch Inc., Ginkgo Bioworks, Peloton Interactive, TSMC ADR (TSM), and Twilio Inc. (TWLO): These small (less than ~1% of the portfolio each) stakes were increased this quarter.

Stake Decreases:

Tesla Motors (TSLA): The TSLA stake was first purchased in 2013 at very low prices. The period through 2019 saw the original position almost tripled at prices up to ~$85. There was minor trimming in the next two quarters and that was followed with a ~55% selling in H2 2020 at prices between ~$242 and ~$706. Last five quarters have seen another ~65% reduction at prices between ~$580 and ~$1222. The stock currently trades at ~$699 and the stake is still the largest position in the portfolio at 7.41%. They are harvesting gains.

Moderna Inc. (MRNA): A small position in MRNA was established in Q1 2020. H2 2020 saw the position built to over 24M shares at prices between ~$58 and ~$157. Next quarter saw another ~85% stake increase at prices between ~$105 and ~$184. Since then, the activity has been minor. The stock currently trades at ~$156 and it is now the second largest position at 5.51% of the portfolio.

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN): AMZN stake was a very small position purchased in 2004. The period through 2009 saw a large ~10M share position built at very low prices. The sizing peaked at ~11M shares in 2014. Since then, the position has seen selling. Recent activity follows. 2020 saw a one-third reduction at prices between ~$89 and ~$170. Last five quarters have seen another ~37% selling at prices between ~$136 and ~$187. The stock is now at ~$114. It is still a top-five stake at 4.60% of the portfolio.

NVIDIA Inc. (NVDA): A large ~14M shares stake in NVDA was first purchased in 2016 at prices up to ~$28. The position has seen periodic selling since. Recent activity follows. Last five quarters saw a ~22% reduction at prices between ~$125 and ~$330. The stock currently trades at ~$150. The stake is still fairly large at 3.23% of the portfolio.

Shopify Inc. (SHOP): The 2.55% of the portfolio SHOP stake was built in the 2017-2019 timeframe at prices between ~$4.50 and ~$40. Since then, the position has seen periodic trimming. Overall, the stake was reduced by ~10% at prices between ~$35 and ~$169. The stock currently trades at ~$34.

The Trade Desk (TTD): The 2.51% TTD position was first purchased in the 2018-2019 timeframe at prices up to ~$28. H1 2021 saw a ~80% stake increase at prices between ~$52 and ~$90. Since then, the activity has been minor. The stock currently trades at $44.29.

Cloudflare, Inc. (NET): The 2.28% NET stake was purchased during Q2 and Q3 2020 at prices between ~$21 and ~$42. Last two quarters have seen a ~10% selling at prices between ~$80 and ~$217. The stock currently trades at $50.50.

Note: they have a ~10% ownership stake in the business.

Netflix, Inc. (NFLX): NFLX is a ~2% of the portfolio stake established in the 2015-2016 timeframe at prices up to ~$130. There was a ~4% trimming over the last four quarters. The stock currently trades at ~$186.

Alnylam Pharma (ALNY), Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), Anthem Inc. (ANTM), Martin Marietta Materials, Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Moody’s Corp. (MCO), NIO Inc. (NIO), and Workday, Inc. (WDAY): These small (less than ~1.5% of the portfolio each) stakes were reduced this quarter.

Abiomed, Inc. (ABMD), AJ Gallagher & Co (AJG), Albemarle Corporation (ALB), Carvana Inc. (CVNA), CBRE Group (CBRE), CoStar Group (CSGP), Datadog, Inc. (DDOG), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), MasterCard Inc. (MA), Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR), Pinduoduo Inc. (PDD), Service Corp International (SCI), Twilio Inc. (TWLO), Wayfair Inc. (W), and Zoom Video (ZM): These very small (less than ~1% of the portfolio each) positions were reduced during the quarter.

BeiGene Ltd. (BGNE), Estee Lauder (EL), First Republic Bank (FRBK), Mettler-Toledo (MTD), NovoCure Ltd. (NVCR), Ryanair ADR (RYAAY), Salesforce (CRM), Teladoc Inc., Teradyne Inc. (TER), and Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO): These minutely small (less than ~0.50% of the portfolio each) stakes were reduced this quarter.

The spreadsheet below highlights changes to Baillie Gifford’ 13F holdings in Q1 2022: