One event to start: Join the FT in New York on June 9 for a senior-level briefing on tokenisation. Leaders from banks and asset managers will examine how tokenised assets are moving into the institutional mainstream and what this means for investment strategy, distribution and market structure.

Confirmed speakers include representatives from the SEC, Sifma, Coinbase and the Digital Chamber. Attendance is complimentary for senior leaders. Apply to attend.

In today’s newsletter:

• Elon Musk courts retail investors for SpaceX IPO

• Partners Group readies cap on US PE fund withdrawals

• Hedge funds bet against call centre stocks on AI threat

Elon Musk clearly respects the power of the retail investor. His SpaceX IPO will offer the largest retail allocation ever attempted in a megacap listing, with the company reserving as much as a quarter of its $75bn float for individual investors.

According to people familiar with the decision, its billionaire founder wants to place small shareholders near the centre of the rocket and satellite group’s ownership from the outset, reflecting Musk’s longstanding preference for retail investors over Wall Street institutions, write Ryan McMorrow and George Steer.

“Elon’s philosophy is all about broad access, that’s why he wants to include retail,” said one of the people.

No previous listing has combined a company of SpaceX’s profile with an individual of Musk’s reach. The world’s richest man promotes his businesses to 240mn followers on X, while Starship launches have turned the company into one of the world’s most recognisable private groups.

In large-cap IPOs, retail buyers have historically received 5 to 10 per cent of the shares on offer. The allocation is significant enough that SpaceX took the unusual step of naming the five online brokerages distributing shares in its prospectus.

The company also added a risk disclosure warning that retail participation could drive volatile trading. Reuters previously reported that up to 30 per cent of shares could go to retail. The final retail allocation has yet to be set and will depend in part on demand, said people close to the deal.

“In the past retail participation hasn’t been driven by a lack of demand, it’s been driven by a lack of supply from the issuer,” said Anthony Noto, chief executive of financial super app SoFi. “Retail [has] been somewhat conditioned not to participate because they don’t have access.”

Some Wall Street investors see the heavy retail allocation as a sign of Musk’s over-reliance on individual fans to prop up the offering.

“Retail is treated like garbage by the rest of the market, there’s an assumption that they’ll buy at any price,” said one manager at a small hedge fund. Still, the manager said he planned to buy SpaceX shares and flip them into the wave of passive buying on the horizon as major indices added SpaceX.

Partners Group plans to cap withdrawals from its flagship US private equity fund for wealthy individuals, people familiar with the matter said, underscoring the growing strains on the Swiss group that helped lead private equity’s push into the retail wealth market.

The company intends to impose the restrictions on its $16bn Private Equity Master Fund in coming weeks following a surge in redemption requests, the people said.

In a statement late last week, Partners Group said redemption requests at the fund reached about 6 per cent of its net asset value in the second quarter, breaching the 5 per cent threshold that allows it to limit withdrawals, write Mercedes Ruehl, Alexandra Heal and Antoine Gara.

The prospect underlines how the pressures that have dogged private credit funds over the past year are now spreading to private equity funds, which have turned to rich retail investors to power their growth.

In its statement, Partners Group put investors on notice that it was prepared to gate more funds, as the “volatility” that had rocked private credit funds had “spilled over to private equity”.

Private credit funds imposed restrictions after investors were spooked by writedowns at some of the biggest funds, high-profile corporate bankruptcies and questions over credit funds’ underwriting standards as well as worries that AI could undermine the vehicles’ investments in software companies.

The warning from Partners Group, which manages $185bn in assets, came a day after the company told investors it was limiting redemptions from its $8.6bn flagship European private equity fund.

The Swiss group was a pioneer of semi-liquid private equity funds, which opened the asset class to wealthy individuals by offering windows to withdraw money. The model fuelled years of rapid growth at the company but is now being tested as more investors seek to cash out.

The company said last week that, overall, it continued to expect strong fundraising this year and forecast that inflows across its private wealth platform would exceed outflows in the first half of 2026.

Nevertheless, it warned that redemption activity could reduce overall assets under management growth by 1 to 2 per cent in the second half of the year and into 2027.

Hedge funds are selling short the shares and debt of outsourcing companies that provide call centres, telemarketing and other services, wagering they will be upended by the rapid rise of AI.

Stocks including Paris-listed Teleperformance, the world’s largest customer service company, and Nasdaq-listed TTEC Holdings are among those targeted by short sellers, as investors look beyond big software names for firms whose products could be under threat, writes Ramsay Hodgson.

Call centre and other so-called customer experience companies are “a very, very clean AI disruption case”, said Kasper Elmgreen, chief investment officer for fixed income and equities at Nordea Asset Management. “Essentially you have a service which is just selling human time to handle repetitive tasks.”

Teleperformance has become one of the most shorted stocks in Europe, with hedge funds including Marshall Wace, Point72, Citadel Advisors and Squarepoint running bets against its shares, according to data group Breakout Point.

Funds are also betting against the company’s debt, with an estimated 11 per cent of its €500mn bond due in 2030 being shorted as of the end of May, while 7.8 per cent of the €750mn bond due in 2028 has been shorted, according to Bank of America.

“The rise of generative AI has triggered a sharp shift in sentiment towards call centre operators,” said Vincent Benguigui, a senior credit portfolio manager at Federated Hermes.

“Investors increasingly fear that automated voice systems and digital agents will reduce demand for outsourced customer service staff . . . This narrative has driven a severe equity re-rating and spilled over into credit markets,” he added.

Elmgreen said that there was more “nuance” around the AI loser theme and software more broadly had become a “hunting ground” for undervalued stocks, although he added the “burden of proof” for a company to dispel AI disruption fears was high.

“If I tell you that the business you’re running may not be viable in three to five years or a significant portion of your business may not be viable in three to five years, it’s going to be very hard for you to disprove that in the next quarter,” he said.

While some private asset firms are coping with redemptions, hedge fund DE Shaw is protecting itself against them. It has stretched the period required for investors to pull out their money, as hedge funds seek greater control over client capital.

Evan Carruthers and Rory O’Neill met more than two decades ago at Cargill, the low-profile US commodities giant. Two decades later, their private credit firm Castlelake shares similar traits. It is considering buying budget airline easyJet.

Canada’s Maple revolutionaries in pensions, such as leader CPPIB, are feeling the strain recently as lacklustre private equity returns weigh on recent performance of a sector leader and others.

Global asset managers, such BlackRock and Schroders, that set up new businesses in China after Beijing relaxed ownership rules have captured tiny market share in five years, confounding hopes for the mainland’s mutual funds industry.

US university endowments, such as at Harvard, are taking bigger market risks to boost investment returns, as schools face growing financial pressure from Trump administration funding cuts and weak private equity performance.

The Tate Modern in London from this month will exhibit the works of Argentine artist Julio Le Parc. He is best known for his pioneering kinetic sculptures, which use light, movement and mirrored surfaces to surprise and draw in the viewer. Featuring his striking interactive installations, shimmering light sculptures and large-scale geometric paintings, the show spans an extraordinary career from the late 1950s to the 2020s.

June 11-May 3