Anthropic nears record IPO as US stock sales top $425B

Anthropic is close to completing the largest initial public offering ever, which would end a year in which artificial intelligence companies raised money on a scale US equity markets had not seen before. If the shares price at the top of the marketed range on Nov. 18, the IPO and a related private placement would raise $90.4 billion combined. That would pass the $86.2 billion SpaceX raised in its June listing, Bloomberg News reported. If underwriters also exercise the over-allotment option after trading starts, the total would exceed $100 billion. That would top the roughly $98 billion equity package Meta Platforms ↗ 2.81% announced last month to fund its AI business.fa-mag.com

According to Bloomberg data, US-listed companies have raised more than $425 billion this year through IPOs, completed at-the-market (ATM) programs and marketed share sales. The previous record was about $408 billion in 2021.fa-mag.com

The terms

Anthropic, which makes the Claude models, filed an amended S-1 on Nov. 10. It plans to sell 825 million Class A shares at $70 to $78 each and list on the Nasdaq ↗ 0.18% Global Select Market under the ticker ANT, according to a GraniteShares release that cited the filing. The company and some existing shareholders could raise up to $64.4 billion from the IPO, and a separate private placement would add about $26 billion, ET CFO reported. At the top of the range, the company would be valued at about $1.4 trillion on a fully diluted basis. Trading is expected to begin Thursday, Nov. 19, according to Yahoo Finance. Anthropic plans to set aside about 20% of the shares for retail investors, and institutional orders already cover the deal at the marketed range, people familiar with the plans told CNBC, as summarized by US Brief.finance.yahoo.com+3

Three record IPOs in months

With Anthropic, the three largest US IPOs ever will have come within a few months of one another. Even after adjusting for inflation, this year's biggest listings are far larger than earlier record-holders such as Saudi Aramco and Visa ↗ 1.33%, Bloomberg reported. SK Hynix's ↘ 4.89% $26.5 billion US listing in July was the largest ever by a company based outside the United States. Adjusted for inflation, though, it ranks behind the debuts of Alibaba ↘ 0.38% in 2014 and SoftBank Corp. ↗ 0.72% in 2018.fa-mag.com

Tech giants sell stock again

The need for AI funding has also led several large tech companies to sell stock for the first time in decades. Most of Meta's $98 billion comes from a planned $60 billion ATM program, which lets a company sell shares into the open market over time. Alphabet's ↘ 1.02% funding plan of about $85 billion includes a $40 billion ATM. Oracle ↘ 1.50% has sold about $20 billion of stock through an ATM, on top of raising tens of billions more through other equity and debt sales, according to Bloomberg. Before this year, Strategy ↘ 1.51% set the benchmark for ATM programs, raising $21 billion through one in 2024 and the same amount again in 2025.fa-mag.com

Some questions about the Anthropic deal remain open. They include where the final price will land and how the stock will trade once the $26 billion of placement shares become sellable. CNBC said those shares are not subject to the usual underwriter lock-up, US Brief noted.us-brief.com