Anthropic Backers Offer Up to $500 Million of IPO Allocations at a Premium

According to Bloomberg, which cited a press release, JonesTrading Institutional Services is marketing a block of Anthropic shares worth up to $500 million on behalf of the backers. Under the arrangement, holders who expect large allocations in the offering can pass part of them to other investment firms. Jon Jefferies, head of private markets at JonesTrading, declined to comment on any specific Anthropic transaction. The investors offering the shares were not named.

The premium shows that some buyers will pay more than the offering price to be sure of getting stock in a deal that bankers are rationing. A share of an IPO allocation bought this way costs more than the IPO price, so buyers lose out unless the stock trades above that level.

Anthropic has set a price range of $70 to $78 a share for 825 million shares, which would raise up to $64.35 billion at the top of the range, CNBC reported. That would value the company at up to $1.405 trillion on a fully diluted basis, compared with $965 billion in its May funding round. People familiar with the details told CNBC that the deal is expected to price on November 18 and start trading on Nasdaq on November 19 under the ticker "ANT". Anthropic is targeting about 20% of the offering for retail investors, well above the usual 5% to 10%.

Separately, AMD, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia and TSMC have agreed to buy $26 billion of Anthropic's Class N common stock at the IPO price in a private placement.

The secondary block will only be priced once the IPO is. Its final cost to buyers depends on where Anthropic sets the offering price within, or outside, the $70 to $78 range on November 18.