THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • Blackstone reportedly told investors it expects Anthropic to receive a double-B rating, the top tier of junk, after its IPO; it had earlier forecast investment grade before 2027.
  • Blackstone anchors a $63 billion financing in which a special purpose vehicle buys Broadcom chips and networking gear and leases them to Anthropic.
  • The rating outlook is a forecast reported by the FT; Anthropic and Blackstone declined to comment to TechCrunch.

Anthropic's debut as a public company may not bring the investment-grade credit standing some of its financiers had hoped for. The Financial Times reported, as summarized by TechCrunch on October 30, that Blackstone has told investors it now expects the Claude developer to be rated in the double-B range by credit agencies once it lists. That is the highest tier of speculative, or "junk," grade.

A revised forecast

According to the FT report, Blackstone had previously predicted that Anthropic would reach investment grade before 2027. The new expectation was shared with investors in a $63 billion deal to finance the company's chips, in which Blackstone is the anchor investor. It is a forecast, not a rating that any agency has issued, and both Anthropic and Blackstone declined to comment to TechCrunch.

The distinction matters for borrowing costs. A junk rating generally means lenders demand higher interest, which would make it harder and more expensive for Anthropic to fund its compute spending. TechCrunch notes that the FT also described investor unease about the scale of the computing agreements Anthropic has signed over the past year.

A sub-investment-grade view would not be new. AI Weekly, citing the FT, reported earlier this month that the agency KBRA gave Anthropic a BB+ issuer rating in June, ahead of a roughly $35 billion chip financing led by Apollo.

The deal behind it

Reuters, in a report republished by Khaleej Times, said the $63 billion package was announced on October 26 and arranged by Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Blackstone. A newly created special purpose vehicle buys Broadcom's AI accelerators and networking equipment and leases them to Anthropic. About $43.5 billion is first-lien senior debt, according to two people cited by Reuters, while Blackstone supplies the committed second-lien portion. Broadcom provides what Reuters called residual value support to lenders, effectively a substantial guarantee, and deliveries are expected to start in 2027.

The IPO context

Anthropic filed its S-1 registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on the same day, planning to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. The company has not yet set the number of shares or a price range, so how investors weigh its debt load against its growth remains to be seen.