&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Danish pension fund blacklists SpaceX IPO, calls $1.8 trillion valuation 'pure fantasy'")
Danish pension fund AkademikerPension has officially placed SpaceX on its investment blacklist, saying it won't participate in its Initial Public Offering, citing its “catastrophic governance” structure. SpaceX is expected to start the formal marketing of its offering next month. According to the CEO of the $25 billion pension fund, Andre Shelde, the IPO is “grossly overvalued”, and it has significant “governance concerns”.
The fund AkademikerPension made headlines early this year by ditching US treasuries as Donald Trump was threatening to seize Greenland. It is now saying that SpaceX's $1.8 trillion target valuation is at least 80% overvalued, and SpaceX's valuation is “pure fantasy”. It forces investors to pay for a highly risky company while accepting minimal risk compensation. Schelde claims that SpaceX's fair value “could not exceed $1 trillion” and is "driven more by Musk's narrative than by economic reality."
It further added that even if they compromise with the overvaluation, the governance structure allows Musk 80 per cent of the voting rights while serving as the Chief Technology Officer as well as Chair of the board. It also said that its concern regarding SpaceX is shared by many other US pension funds. In a letter published on May 14, New York Comptroller Mark Levine, CEO of California Public Employees' Retirement System, Marcie Frost, and Thomas DiNapoli, the State of New York Comptroller, raised serious concerns about the “extreme governance structure” at SpaceX.. Despite the small size of AkademikerPension, it has drawn attention due to its decision. Last year, it dumped its stake in Tesla Inc., citing concerns that Musk was destroying the company's brand and value. In January, it offloaded US Treasuries, saying that the US government is “not a good credit.”
Schelde said that AkademikerPension would “like to be able to invest in SpaceX and its technologies” if it were not for the perceived overvaluation and governance risks. It said that it might invest in the upcoming OpenAI IPO: “OpenAI will most likely enter our passive equity portfolio following an IPO, assuming it becomes part of the relevant market indices.” Though Schelde said that OpenAI has betrayed its public benefit mission by moving toward a for-profit structure.
