Picking Private Market Winners: Maggie Fanari on SpaceX, Anthropic & Stripe

Where will the next wave of AI investment opportunities emerge, and how can investors access them?

In this episode of The Master Investor Podcast, Wilfred Frost speaks to Maggie Fanari, CEO of J. Rothschild Capital Management, which manages RIT Capital Partners, the investment trust founded by Jacob Rothschild in 1988. Maggie shares the thinking behind investments in SpaceX, Anthropic, Stripe and Cognition, explaining why she believes the AI opportunity has a long runway, but why stock selection is key with huge risk posed by index concentration and the reality that not every AI bet will be a winner.

From making more than four times RIT’s money on SpaceX to identifying the potential of agentic AI, Maggie discusses what she looks for in exceptional businesses, founders and management teams. She also explores opportunities beyond the market’s most crowded trades, including US smaller companies, Japanese companies embracing corporate reform and European defence.

Wilf and Maggie examine RIT’s recent performance, and how it combines public equities, private investments and uncorrelated strategies to pursue long-term growth while seeking to protect capital in falling markets. They also discuss the reasons for the 22% discount to Net Asset Value that the fund trades at, which Maggie argues will close and provides an exceptional entry point to her fund.

Recorded 27th October 2026

0:00 Intro

2:30 History of RIT

4:30 Long term performance

5:54 Earnings resilience

7:05 Concentration risk

8:00 Rates not too high

10:22 Bullish Japan

14:47 Backing SpaceX early

20:10 Anthropic

23:55 AI Bubble?

28:00 Stripe

31:44 Cognition

34:14 Uncorrelated Assets

35:50 Credit holding in

38:35 Light on Gold

40:10 Discount to NAV

45:05 Closing advice

Watch the full episode on The Master Investor Podcast YouTube channel (youtube.com/@TheMasterInvestorPodcast)

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