Anthropic, the San Francisco company behind the Claude AI assistant is going public. An initial public offering (IPO) is the first time a private company sells shares to the public. Anthropic plans to sell 825 million Class A shares at USD 70 to USD 78 each, or about KES 9,100 to KES 10,100, and list them on Nasdaq in New York under the ticker ANT.
The roadshow, where the company and its lead banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, pitch the shares to large investors, started on 10th November. The final price is expected on 18th November and trading on 19th November, US Eastern time, both subject to regulatory clearance. At the top of the range the sale raises USD 64.35 billion, or about KES 8.4 trillion, and the banks can buy up to 123.75 million more shares within 30 days. Separately, seven tech companies, Google and Nvidia among them, have agreed to buy USD 26 billion (about KES 3.4 trillion) of a non-voting class of stock at the IPO price.
Where Kenya stands
For a reader in Nairobi, the first question is whether they can get in at the IPO price, and for now the answer is no. In the US, retail investors apply through Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Fidelity, Robinhood and SoFi. Outside the US, the prospectus names public offers in the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and nine European countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Each comes with its own named list of brokers, and Anthropic says it “has not authorized any other firm or platform to offer” shares in those retail offers. No African country is on the list.
Hisa, which got a no-objection from the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) in December 2021 to offer US stocks to Kenyans through Faida Investment Bank, now advertises access to “eligible U.S. Initial Public Offerings” in its App Store listing. Neither Hisa’s listing nor Anthropic’s broker lists says ANT is one of them.
That leaves the open market. Once ANT starts trading on 19th November, anyone with an app or broker that carries Nasdaq stocks can buy it, and Nasdaq’s trading day starts at 5:30pm Kenyan time. They won’t pay the IPO price, though. The IPO site says shares bought after trading begins are bought at the market price, which on a first day can sit well above or below USD 70 to USD 78.
What the shares come with
A Class A share carries one vote, but Class A holders won’t run the company. The seven co-founders hold Class F stock with 50.1% of all voting power, and a Long-Term Benefit Trust of five trustees elects a majority of the board through Class T stock. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation, a US company type that has to weigh a stated public purpose alongside returns to shareholders.
The business is growing fast and, on paper, losing a lot of money. In the nine months to 30th September, revenue was USD 33.24 billion (about KES 4.3 trillion), up from USD 2.55 billion a year earlier. The net loss for those nine months was USD 104 billion, of which USD 94.3 billion was an accounting charge from revaluing convertible notes and similar instruments; the operating loss was USD 1.26 billion. The last private round, in May, valued Anthropic at USD 965 billion.
From Kenya, then, the two dates to watch are 18th November, when the price is set, and the evening of 19th November, when ANT trades. Whoever buys then pays the market price for shares that carry a vote but leave control with the founders and the trust.
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