
PBC 警告称,可能需要比这家人工智能公司预期的更早寻求更多融资,同时在备受关注的 IPO 招股说明书中,对其潜在的投资级信用评级路径只字未提。
PBC warned it may need to seek more financing sooner than the artificial-intelligence company had anticipated while saying little about its potential path to an investment-grade credit rating in its closely watched IPO filing.
达到投资级评级,可让 Claude 的制造商在其资金需求激增之际,获得规模大得多的资本池。保险公司、养老基金和其他大型投资者是高等级公司债券的主要买家,获得这些评级可使 Anthropic 以更低成本借款。
Reaching investment grade could give the maker of Claude access to a much deeper pool of capital at a time when its funding requirements are ballooning. Insurance companies, pension funds and other large investors are major buyers of high-grade corporate bonds, and attaining those ratings could allow Anthropic to borrow more cheaply.
SpaceX 为一家新上市的科技公司如何迅速跻身高等级债务市场提供了近期的范例。今年早些时候,埃隆·马斯克旗下的 SpaceX 在准备上市时,曾在招股文件中表示旨在“维持投资级信用评级”,随后迅速从穆迪评级、标普全球评级和惠誉评级处获得该等级。公司在 IPO 后于 6 月发行了 250 亿美元的投资级债券,该债券发行后即大幅下跌,令借款方震惊。潜在债券买家正在等待观察 Anthropic 的计划。
SpaceX provides a recent road map for how quickly a newly public technology company can graduate into the high-grade debt market. When Elon Musk’s company prepared to go public earlier this year, SpaceX said it aimed to “maintain an investment grade credit rating” in its filing, and then quickly achieved that grade from Moody’s Ratings, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings. The company followed its IPO with a $25 billion investment-grade bond deal in June, which immediately traded down so much that it stunned lenders. Potential bond buyers are waiting to see Anthropic’s plans.
尽管 Anthropic 的招股文件未像 SpaceX 那样明确勾勒投资级雄心,但正在披露该公司资产负债表的新细节,包括截至 6 月 30 日以可转换期票形式欠亚马逊公司的 62 亿美元现有债务——一种可转换为股权而非以现金偿还的债券——以及数百亿美元的额外借贷能力。
While Anthropic’s filing doesn’t outline its investment-grade ambitions so clearly, it is shedding new light on the company’s balance sheet, including $6.2 billion of current debt as of June 30 in the form of convertible promissory notes to Amazon.com Inc., a type of bond that can be converted into equity rather than paid back in cash — and the capacity to borrow tens of billions more.
文件还披露了关于一项为期五年、总额150亿美元的循环信贷融资的细节,该融资由摩根士丹利牵头的一组银行在9月份的交易中提供,将融资规模从早先的约30亿美元增加到了现在的水平。该交易包含担保和担保权益,如果安谋科技(Anthropic)从三大主要信用评级机构中的至少两家获得投资级评级,这些担保和担保权益将被解除。目前,穆迪、标普和惠誉尚未发布其评级。安谋科技的代表未立即回复置评请求。
The documents also reveal details about a five-year $15 billion revolving credit facility provided by a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley in a September transaction, which increased the size of the package from about $3 billion earlier. The deal included guarantees and security interests that would be released if Anthropic wins an investment-grade rating from at least two of the three main credit graders. So far, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch have yet to publish their ratings. A representative for Anthropic didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
文件显示,该循环信贷融资的利率将根据公司评级而变动。这些利率可能从基准利率上浮0.75个百分点(针对A级信用评级)到上浮1.25个百分点(针对BBB-评级,即投资级的最低档)。
The revolving credit facility would carry interest rates that vary depending on the company’s rating, the filing showed. Those rates could go from 0.75 percentage point over an underlying benchmark rate for an A credit rating to 1.25 percentage points for a BBB- rating, the lowest of investment grade.
“安谋科技的状况是拥有非常强的流动性和非同寻常的未来义务,”Impax Asset Management Group的投资级投资组合经理Tony Trzcinka表示。“资产负债表在当前杠杆水平下支持投资级评级。然而,评级将取决于评级机构如何看待其承诺时间表、短暂的运营历史以及循环交易对手关系。”面对为快速扩大模型并与OpenAI等竞争对手抗衡而制定的大规模支出计划,安谋科技一直依赖博通公司为交易提供担保,在这些交易中,一个特殊企业实体发行债务购买芯片,然后将芯片租赁给安谋科技。
“The state of Anthropic is they have very strong liquidity and extraordinary future obligations,” said Tony Trzcinka, an investment-grade portfolio manager at Impax Asset Management Group. “The balance sheet supports an investment-grade rating at today’s leverage. However, the rating will come down to how the rating agencies view the commitment schedule, short operating history and circular counterparty relationships.”Facing massive spending plans to quickly grow its models and compete with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic has been relying on Broadcom Inc. to backstop transactions where a special corporate entity raises debt to buy chips, which are then rented to Anthropic.
首笔此类交易名为“Big Sky”,筹集了350亿美元,其中大部分由博通支持,并获得了投资级评级。周一,博通宣布了另一笔价值630亿美元的交易,用于为购买芯片并租赁给安谋科技提供融资。
The first of such deals, called Big Sky, raised $35 billion, most of which was supported by Broadcom and received an investment-grade rating. On Monday, Broadcom announced another deal worth $63 billion to finance the purchase of chips for Anthropic to rent.
无论是通过租赁还是实际的资产负债表内借款,Anthropic 的融资才刚刚开始。如果该公司选择这样做,它还有权从亚马逊、博通和 Alphabet 旗下的谷歌再借入 770 亿美元的承兑可转换票据。
Whether through leases or actual on-balance sheet borrowing, the fundraising is just beginning for Anthropic. The company has the option to borrow another $77 billion of promissory convertible notes, if it so chooses, from Amazon, Broadcom and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
与此同时,尚未开始的租赁(主要与算力和基础设施产能相关)在 6 月底跃升至 3210 亿美元,而 12 月底约为 500 亿美元。这些义务的巨大规模使得 Anthropic 最终的信用状况变得日益重要。
Meanwhile leases not yet commenced, primarily related to compute and infrastructure capacity, jumped to $321 billion as of the end of June, up from about $50 billion at the end of December. The sheer scale of those obligations makes Anthropic’s eventual credit standing increasingly important.