{"text":[[{"start":10.15,"text":"Apollo and Blackstone have finalised a $35bn private credit deal that will help finance Anthropic’s growth plans, as banks and investment groups across Wall Street pour capital into the AI boom."}],[{"start":22.9,"text":"The two private investment groups led the financing, one of the largest private credit deals completed, which will fund Anthropic’s purchase of Alphabet-developed chips. "}],[{"start":32.5,"text":"It underscores the massive appetite investors have for AI and the deep pockets they are willing to dig into to finance the data centre infrastructure and computing power needed by companies including Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta. "}],[{"start":47.3,"text":"Yet the deal, dubbed project “Big Sky”, comes amid concerns that the AI frenzy has overheated the broader market. Shares in chipmakers rebounded on Monday after tumbling last week, led by Broadcom’s fall in market value."}],[{"start":61.5,"text":"It adds to a deluge of chip-backed loans that sparked debate over how quickly graphics processing units would depreciate as AI technology evolves."}],[{"start":71,"text":"Apollo and Blackstone declined to comment. "}],[{"start":74.2,"text":"The transaction wrapped up days after Alphabet completed one of the largest equity offerings in history, as it looks to raise $85bn to fund Google’s AI build-out, and as SpaceX prepares for a flotation that could raise a record $86bn. Anthropic is readying its initial public offering, following its blockbuster $65bn private financing round."}],[{"start":98.55000000000001,"text":"The AI borrowing spree has reached beyond traditional US capital markets, with Amazon raising C$14bn (US$10bn) on Monday in the largest Canadian dollar bond sale. The company confirmed the bond sale to the FT."}],[{"start":114.25000000000001,"text":"Anthropic’s deal with Apollo and Blackstone relies on a complex structure that private investment groups routinely use to finance start-ups with backing from blue-chip companies. A special purpose vehicle formed by Apollo’s Atlas SP Partners raised the debt and equity, with lease agreements for the chips ultimately supporting the value of the transaction, said people briefed on the matter."}],[{"start":138.45000000000002,"text":"Apollo and Blackstone structured the loan across three tranches, with interest payments on the two senior segments backstopped by Broadcom. The chipmaker is making the so-called tensor processing units, or TPUs, with Google. Its agreement to provide support if Anthropic misses an interest payment helped vastly reduce the costs on the debt."}],[{"start":159.9,"text":"The two senior portions of the debt were split between banks and investors. Some $6bn of so-called A1 notes were sold to banks with an interest rate 1 percentage point over Treasuries. A further $24bn was sold on to investors in asset-backed credit markets, priced with a yield of 5.75 per cent."}],[{"start":178.65,"text":"The $4.5bn of junior debt, which is not supported by Broadcom and therefore exposes lenders more acutely to Anthropic, carried an interest rate of 8.5 per cent. Investors were also offered an original issue discount of 98 cents to 99 cents on the dollar depending on cheque sizes. "}],[{"start":198.95000000000002,"text":"Morgan Stanley, which advised Broadcom and arranged the transaction, also lent to investors participating in the deal. Morgan Stanley declined to comment."}],[{"start":207.75000000000003,"text":"Investors pitched on the deal were not given early access to Anthropic’s financials ahead of its IPO, said people familiar with the arrangement. Some investors passed on the deal over the delayed-draw format of the debt, which drives down yields because the money can be withdrawn in multiple tranches over a period of time."}],[{"start":225.10000000000002,"text":"Broadcom chief executive Hock Tan last week said the company hoped to connect “investor partners with the strongest balance sheets to deliver at scale sufficient compute capacity at the lowest cost”, pointing to the deal with Apollo and Blackstone as the first of many transactions to come."}],[{"start":251.35000000000002,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1780976121_3268.mp3"}