Banks Shut China, Hong Kong Investors Out of Anthropic IPO

Institutional investors in mainland China and Hong Kong have been shut out of the order book for Anthropic's IPO, with syndicate banks rebuffing their orders under US arms-export rules, Bloomberg reported. According to the reporting, 'several banks have either refused to take those orders or consider it unlikely that they would be able to get allocations.'

The constraint cited is the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the US regime that controls the trade of defense products. Anthropic's own amended registration statement flags that its models, platform and applications 'may be controlled' under the Commerce Department's Export Administration Regulations or ITAR, and that in certain contexts their provision 'may constitute export of defense articles or defense services subject to ITAR.'

The playbook is not new. Syndicate banks took the same approach on SpaceX's $86.2 billion IPO earlier this year, barring mainland China and Hong Kong bids at the primary stage; those investors could buy only once trading opened on the secondary market.

Demand for the stock is otherwise heavy. Orders are reportedly running at six times the available supply. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead a syndicate of 22 banks on the offering, which is scheduled to price on November 18 and begin trading on Nasdaq on November 19 under the ticker ANT. The company has set a price range of $70 to $78 per share, implying a valuation near $1 trillion at the midpoint and about $61 billion raised.

The listing arrives as Anthropic's compute bill is itself becoming a public question. CEO Dario Amodei called it the company's 'deepest business dilemma' in coverage the same day.