Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs near top roles on Anthropic's $2tn IPO

Morgan Stanley poised for lead-left mandate

Morgan Stanley is in pole position to secure the lead-left role in Anthropic's planned initial public offering, according to four people familiar with the matter. The lead-left designation would give Morgan Stanley control over valuation discussions and decisions about which hedge funds, institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds receive the largest allocations of Anthropic stock. The selection is not yet finalized and could still change.

In recent weeks, Morgan Stanley has led discussions with potential Anthropic investors about the price at which the AI company will float its shares, two of the people said.

Goldman Sachs lined up as stabilization agent

Goldman Sachs is expected to act as the IPO's stabilization agent, an appointment that oversees the crucial first sessions of trading once Anthropic lists. Goldman won the leading role on SpaceX's offering in June, with Morgan Stanley named as that deal's stabilization agent, and the two banks split roughly $100 million from the broader fee pot shared among more than 20 lenders on the SpaceX listing.

JPMorgan, Citigroup and Barclays are also expected to secure leading roles on the Anthropic deal after providing the company with debt financing.

Filing timeline and scale of the offering

Anthropic, the AI lab behind the Claude chatbot, is expected to publicly file its IPO prospectus as soon as next week, several of the people said, though they cautioned that the timing was not yet certain and could slip. Half a dozen Anthropic investors have previously said they expected the group to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, a level that would unlock tens of billions of dollars in gains for early backers.

The offering comes months after SpaceX raised a record-breaking $86 billion in its listing at a $1.78 trillion valuation and is positioned to test investor appetite for fast-growing AI ventures.

Courted rivals and broader mandate

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will also court Anthropic rival OpenAI, which is expected to go public early next year. Anthropic's fortunes have risen sharply over the past year, even though its revenue in July undershot the most bullish expectations from investors.