(Sept 4): Anthropic PBC is set to finalise an expansion of its revolving credit facility to US$15 billion (RM60.65 billion), according to people familiar with the matter, clearing a hurdle before the artificial intelligence firm’s public filing for its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO).
Morgan Stanley is leading the process, the people said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co also have prominent roles on the facility, along with Citigroup Inc, they said. The four lenders are also leading the IPO, Bloomberg News has reported.
The Claude chatbot maker is seeking to raise as much as SpaceX or more in the IPO, people familiar with the preparations have said. Companies typically finalise the revolver before they notify banks of their formal roles in a listing.
Barclays plc and Wells Fargo & Co are also expected to have key roles on the loan, the people said. Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank AG, Royal Bank of Canada, and UBS Group AG are also high in the credit facility’s lineup, they said.
Generally, in syndicated loans, the higher the commitment of a bank, the higher the fees it gets paid by a borrower. When a large capital markets transaction is expected, a higher ranking in a loan is likely to correspond to a more active role in the upcoming deal.
Bank of Montreal, BNP Paribas SA, Credit Agricole SA, Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc and Toronto-Dominion Bank are also on the so-called revolver, the people said.
The credit facility would exceed the company’s roughly US$10 billion target, Bloomberg News reported in August.
Anthropic had asked the most active banks leading the credit line to lend about US$1.25 billion each, with the next level of active banks being encouraged to offer around US$1 billion, and with the commitments dropping to roughly US$750 million and lower for less active roles, Bloomberg reported.
Details of the loan could still change, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. Representatives for Anthropic, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and UBS declined to comment. The other banks didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The revolving credit line is substantially larger than the US$2.5 billion five-year facility Anthropic secured last year, with participation from Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Canada and MUFG, according to a LinkedIn post at the time.
The AI developer’s race to go public gives it an opportunity to follow the lead of companies like SpaceX, which expanded its revolving credit facility to US$5 billion in May from an earlier US$1.5 billion, the prospectus showed, just a month before its record-breaking IPO. The bank lineup on that offering was substantially the same as those working on the IPO.
Landing a top spot working on a large IPO not only promises a bigger share of the fees than the rest of the banks, it also helps bolster a bank’s ranking in the league tables. JPMorgan has the top ranking in Bloomberg’s US equity offerings table for 2026, thanks in part to its role on SpaceX’s record-setting US$86.2 billion debut, including the over-allotment.
The AI race has fired up the IPO market, with US listings this year raising US$160.6 billion, excluding blank-check firms and other financial vehicles, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the most raised in a year since 2021, the data show.
Anthropic is on track to generate annualized revenue of over US$65 billion based on its current performance, up more than sevenfold from its pace at the end of last year, Bloomberg News reported.
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