Anthropic PBC’s long-awaited price range surfaced on Monday night, briefly. A representative of the artificial-intelligence company emailed banks a copy of a draft securities filing showing it planned to sell about 867 million shares at $70 to $80 apiece, then followed up to say the pricing details were inaccurate and that the filing would be updated. Anthropic declined to comment.
At the top of that range the offering would have raised about $69.3 billion. The draft split the sale between roughly 843.3 million new shares from the company and about 23.3 million shares from existing holders. The figure is below the $80 billion to $100 billion that people familiar with the plans described a day earlier, and the company reportedly later described the leaked number as outdated. Neither report said which details were wrong.
A $26 billion side deal
The draft also showed something new: a $26 billion private placement lined up alongside the IPO. Alphabet’s Google, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, Micron Technology, Microsoft and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing had agreed to buy Anthropic’s Class N common stock at the IPO price, in a placement set to close right after the listing. Class N shares carry no general voting rights and convert to Class A when sold to an unaffiliated buyer, according to the company’s amended registration statement, whose public version still leaves the price and share count blank.
The list reads like Anthropic’s supply chain. The company has disclosed nearly $900 billion of computing commitments with partners including Amazon and Google, and the chip and cloud suppliers in the placement would end up as shareholders as well as vendors.
Marketing starts this week
Anthropic was expected to launch its formal roadshow as soon as Tuesday, with pricing the following week and a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. Anthropic also plans a livestreamed conversation on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter, between Chief Executive Dario Amodei and JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, whose bank is leading sales to individual investors. Investors have discussed valuations of about $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, down from talk of $2 trillion before the recent selloff in AI-linked stocks and bonds.
