Blackstone has told investors that Anthropic may not secure an investment-grade credit rating after its IPO, the Financial Times reported on 30 October. According to summaries of the FT report by Wall St Engine and DeItaone on X, Blackstone expects Anthropic to receive a rating in the double-B range, below investment grade, reversing its earlier expectation of an investment-grade rating by year-end.
Per the same summaries, Blackstone’s funds invested $9B in the junior debt of Anthropic’s $63B financing known as Project North Star, earning yields above 10%. By our arithmetic, that is half of the $18B junior tranche.
Video explainer · Anthropic’s S-1 Explained
Our earlier explainer on Anthropic’s S-1 filing. It predates the FT report and does not discuss the credit rating.
The key insight: Blackstone, which holds $9 billion of Anthropic’s junior debt at yields above 10%, has told investors Anthropic is likely to be rated in the double-B range after its IPO, according to the FT as summarised on X; no agency has rated Anthropic yet.
Go deeper: what 1 GW of AI costs. Project North Star’s $63B for 1.5 GW of chips is about $42B per GW by our arithmetic; our comparison sets that chip-financing scope against facility-only and all-in build-and-run figures.
The FT headline reads: “Anthropic may not secure investment-grade rating after IPO, Blackstone tells investors”. The article body is behind the FT paywall; the details below come from the two summaries on X.
Wall St Engine wrote that “The lower rating could make it more expensive for Anthropic to finance its massive AI infrastructure expansion, while limiting access to pension funds and insurers that face restrictions on investing in junk-rated debt”.
It also wrote that “The major credit agencies, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, have not yet formally issued ratings for Anthropic, per FT”.
Project North Star debt layers as reported by the FT and summarised on X: more than $42B of Broadcom-guaranteed senior loans, $18B of junior debt backed by Anthropic’s lease payments, of which Blackstone funds hold $9B at yields above 10%.
Blackstone has warned investors that Anthropic may receive a below-investment-grade credit rating following its IPO, reversing earlier expectations, according to the Financial Times.
The AI company is reportedly expected to receive a BB-range rating, potentially raising borrowing costs and limiting access to institutional capital.
Anthropic plans to spend over $800 billion on computing infrastructure through 2045, while its $63 billion Project North Star financing relies heavily on guarantees from investment-grade-rated Broadcom.
The company reportedly holds over $112 billion in cash and could raise another $100 billion through its IPO.
DeItaone’s summary of the FT report: Blackstone warned investors Anthropic may receive a below-investment-grade rating after its IPO, and its $63 billion Project North Star financing relies heavily on guarantees from Broadcom.
The FT’s post linking its report: Anthropic may not secure an investment-grade rating after its IPO, Blackstone says.
Breaking news: Blackstone told investors Anthropic may not receive an investment-grade rating immediately after going public, a reversal from its previous guidance that would complicate the AI labโs ability to finance its massive spending. https://ft.trib.al/kxyB4GD
The FT’s breaking-news post: in the FT’s words, Blackstone told investors Anthropic may not receive an investment-grade rating immediately after going public, a reversal from its previous guidance that would complicate the AI lab’s ability to finance its massive spending.
BREAKING: Anthropic is now expected to receive a “high junk” rating from major credit rating agencies after its IPO, which could come as soon as November, per FT.
Details include:
1. Blackstone has told investors that Anthropic likely will not receive an investment-grade rating immediately after its IPO
2. Blackstone is working with banks that stumped up financing on selling the debt on to other investors
3. An investment-grade rating is “central” to Anthropic’s ability to continue its AI buildout
4. The company says it expects to spend over $800 billion on computing infrastructure between now and 2045
Debt markets are increasingly in the spotlight as AI funding becomes less abundant.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) Oct 30 18:00
The Kobeissi Letter, citing the FT, says Anthropic is now expected to receive a “high junk” rating after an IPO that, per the post, could come as soon as November. The post also says Blackstone is working with the banks that provided the financing on selling the debt on to other investors, and that Anthropic expects to spend over $800 billion on computing infrastructure through 2045. These details are the post’s; the FT article body was paywalled to us.
How Project North Star Is Built
Per Wall St Engine’s summary, Blackstone participates in Anthropic’s $63B financing, known as Project North Star, “to support the leasing of 1.5 GW of Google’s AI chips”. Under the deal, “More than $42B in senior loans are guaranteed by Broadcom”, “Another $18B in junior debt is backed by Anthropic’s lease payments”, and “Blackstone’s funds invested $9B in junior debt, earning yields above 10%”.
By our arithmetic, the senior loans are about 70% of the $60B of senior and junior debt named (42/60), and the junior tranche at yields above 10% carries more than $1.8B a year in interest (18 x 10%, a lower bound).
Anthropic’s S-1 states: “As of June 30, 2026, our total indebtedness was $6.2 billion”, reflecting convertible notes issued to Amazon. It also says Anthropic has “the ability to issue, if needed, up to $42.0 billion in aggregate principal amount of convertible promissory notes to Broadcom” or a designated financial partner, “to finance obligations under the 2026 Lease Arrangement”. The FT summary separately describes more than $42 billion of senior loans guaranteed by Broadcom; the filing does not say whether the two are the same financing.
On commitments, the S-1 says Anthropic has entered into purchase commitments and lease agreements that are “substantially all of which is related to compute and infrastructure”, and that “substantially all of the remainder is expected to be incurred between 2031 and 2045”. The aggregate dollar figure is left blank in the filing we read. The summaries attribute a figure of more than $800 billion through 2045 to the prospectus; we could not confirm that number in the S-1 text.
The junior yields above 10% sit against other AI borrowing we have tracked. Microsoft’s $25 billion bond package carries about $1.28 billion a year in coupons, about 5.1% by our arithmetic (Microsoft priced $25B at 64bp over Treasuries). That is a different borrower and a different instrument. See also our GPU debt tracker.
The Structural Read
As we read the summaries, the junior debt is the part of Project North Star that rests on Anthropic’s own lease payments, while the senior loans rest on Broadcom’s guarantee.
By our arithmetic, Blackstone’s $9 billion is half of the $18 billion junior tranche, and that tranche carries more than $1.8 billion a year in interest at yields above 10%.
As we read the S-1, Anthropic’s reported indebtedness at June 30 was $6.2 billion of Amazon convertible notes, separate from the lease-linked financing.
Wall St Engine, summarising the FT report
“The lower rating could make it more expensive for Anthropic to finance its massive AI infrastructure expansion”
Three Implications
FOR ANTHROPIC’S LENDERS Wall St Engine wrote that a junk rating limits access to pension funds and insurers that face restrictions on investing in junk-rated debt.
FOR BROADCOM Per the summary, more than $42 billion of senior loans in the deal are guaranteed by Broadcom.
FOR THE IPO The FT headline says Anthropic may not secure an investment-grade rating after the IPO; no agency has issued one.
The framework describes the build-out this way: “It is a sovereign-scale financing problem dressed in tech-company clothing โ and the financial architecture is starting to invert.”
The framework is the owner’s general argument about AI infrastructure finance, not evidence about Anthropic’s rating; it does not discuss Blackstone or Project North Star.
What Is Not Established
Only the FT headline was readable to us; the details come from two summaries on X. No rating agency has issued a rating, per the FT as summarised. Blackstone’s expectation is a view, and the rating is described as likely, not decided. The $800 billion figure is not visible in the S-1 text we read. Anthropic’s risk factors are covered in our S-1 risk piece.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
Blackstone, which holds $9 billion of Anthropic’s junior debt at yields above 10%, has told investors Anthropic is likely to be rated in the double-B range after its IPO, according to the FT as summarised on X. Anthropic’s S-1 separately says it can issue up to $42.0 billion of notes to Broadcom or a designated financial partner to finance its 2026 lease arrangement.
A note on sourcing. Only the FT headline was readable to us; details of the FT report come from Wall St Engine’s and DeItaone’s summaries on X, read on 30 October 2026. S-1 passages are quoted from Anthropic’s filing. Ratios are our own arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
