❯ Broadcom’s bank group starts placing $60 billion of AI chip financing, with Anthropic the main beneficiary

$60 billion goes to marketAccording to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, Broadcom’s Wall Street bank group has begun gathering about $60 billion of AI chip financing that will benefit Anthropic and other companies. The banks are preparing to send investors syndication letters for a $42 billion Class A senior secured portion. The deal has not been formally announced.

Debt in two layersThe financing has two layers. The $42 billion senior layer is repaid first and carries less risk. A further $18 billion junior layer is led by Blackstone, which is taking $9 billion itself and selling the rest. Under the structure described in August reporting, Anthropic does not buy the chips directly. Investors pay for them and lease the hardware to the company.

From the prospectus to the marketBloomberg reported in August that Broadcom was in talks to raise more than $60 billion in debt, with Blackstone and Apollo discussing taking part. The three had done a similar $35 billion deal in June to expand Anthropic’s compute. Anthropic’s IPO prospectus then disclosed this week that Broadcom had agreed to lend it up to $42 billion. The new step is that the bank group is now actually looking for investors, and pricing and maturity have not been disclosed.

Broadcom's risk movesBroadcom used to simply sell chips. Now it is arranging its customers’ financing, and the August reporting said it would backstop part of the senior layer. If investors buy in smoothly, it locks in orders for years. If Anthropic’s revenue fails to keep up with its lease payments, the losses land first on these creditors and on Broadcom. How well this debt sells is itself a vote on demand for AI compute.

▪ SIGNALMore of the money behind AI compute now comes from bond investors than from tech companies, so whether chips get sold increasingly depends on whether Wall Street will hold the paper.