For years, a private stake in a great company was something you held and waited on. In 2026 the waiting ended for two of the companies we back. Cerebras listed on the Nasdaq on May 14. SpaceX, which absorbed xAI in February, followed on June 12 in the largest IPO on record.
The headline is the price. The work is everything underneath it.
| Company | Listed | IPO price | First close | Raised |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cerebras | May 14 | $185 | $311.07 | $5.55B |
| SpaceX | June 12 | $135 | $161 | $75B |
Sources: Nasdaq; CNBC; Access IPOs. SpaceX valuation implied at approximately $1.77 trillion at the open.
The position is not the shares
Most private exposure to companies like these is held through a vehicle: an SPV or a fund that owns the stock on behalf of its members. When the company lists, the vehicle owns public shares. Its members do not, yet. Those shares have to be distributed, and that tends to happen in tranches, on the sponsor's timeline, after lockups and through transfer agents.
Simplified. Lockup length, tranche count and timing vary by vehicle and are set by the sponsor's documents.
Holders who assume a listing means liquidity are often surprised by how long the gap is between the bell and the shares arriving in an account they control.
Custody decides how painful that is
Where a position is held matters as much as what it is. Retirement accounts that hold private positions usually sit with a specialist custodian, and not every custodian can hold both the private interest and the public shares it turns into. If one cannot, each tranche can mean another transfer, another set of forms and another delay. Choosing a custodian that can hold both, before the distributions begin, is one of the least glamorous and most valuable decisions in the whole process.
The listing is a change of venue, not a change of thesis. The question we ask is the same one we asked when we went in.
A daily price changes the conversation
A private mark updates a few times a year. A public price updates every second. A position that felt stable at a private valuation can suddenly become the most volatile line in a portfolio. That is when sizing, hedging and tax planning stop being theoretical. We think about collars and staged reductions before the shares arrive, not after.
What we are doing
- iTreating each distribution as its own decision, not an automatic sale or an automatic hold.
- iiConsolidating custody so private and public shares can sit in the same place.
- iiiRe-sizing each position now that it has a daily price.
- ivRe-underwriting each company on public disclosure, which for both is far richer than anything available privately.
Sources
This piece reflects the office's views at the date shown and is provided for information only. It is not investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any security. Figures are drawn from the public sources listed; illustrations are simplified and are not a forecast.
