Anthropic close to awarding Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs top roles in $2tn IPO

Anthropic is close to awarding Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs the most coveted roles in its blockbuster Wall Street debut, as the AI behemoth prepares to unveil its initial public offering paperwork as soon as next week.

Morgan Stanley was in pole position to secure the prized "lead left" role, according to four people familiar with the matter. Goldman is expected to act as the IPO's stabilisation agent, a lucrative appointment overseeing the crucial first sessions of trading when Anthropic lists.

Morgan Stanley had in recent weeks led discussions with potential Anthropic investors about the price at which it will float its shares, two of the people said. They added that the selection of Morgan Stanley as lead left — the strategic adviser on the deal — was not finalised and could still change.

The AI lab behind the Claude chatbot is expected to publicly file its IPO prospectus as soon as next week, several people said, firing the starting gun on an offering that will test investors' appetite for fast-growing AI ventures months after SpaceX raised a record-breaking $86bn in its listing at a $1.78tn valuation. The people cautioned that the timing was not yet certain and could still slip.

Half a dozen Anthropic investors have previously said they expected the group to float at a valuation of $2tn or more, the FT previously reported. If so, early investors are set to unlock tens of billions of dollars in gains.

JPMorgan, Citigroup and Barclays are also among the banks expected to get leading roles on the Anthropic deal after providing the group with debt financing.

Goldman won the leading role on SpaceX's offering in June, with Morgan Stanley named as the deal's stabilisation agent. Both banks took $100mn of the half-billion-dollar fee pot shared between the more than 20 lenders who worked on the SpaceX deal.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman will also court Anthropic's rival OpenAI, which is expected to go public early next year. The lead left role confers control over valuation discussions and decisions around which hedge funds, institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds receive the largest allocations of a company's stock. It is also a source of bragging rights on Wall Street.

Anthropic has seen its fortunes rise sharply in the past year, and investors expect it will more than double its current valuation of more than $900bn, surpassing SpaceX to become the biggest IPO of all time.

Anthropic and Goldman declined to comment. Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.