In June, rating agency KBRA assigned Anthropic a BB+ issuer rating, the highest speculative-grade (junk) rating, just one notch below investment grade, with a stable outlook. The rating applies to about $4.4 billion of subordinated debt in a $35 billion chip financing package, with an issuance yield of about 8.5%, compared with an interest rate of 5.75% for the senior debt. Because Anthropic provides limited disclosures, KBRA did not obtain key metrics such as free cash flow and EBITDA, and therefore used a “risk score” in place of a full financial model for its assessment. As of the end of June, the five-year-old company had no debt on its own balance sheet. Wall Street is now preparing a new $60 billion debt package, including $18 billion in subordinated debt, to fund the acquisition of custom AI chips jointly developed by Google and Broadcom. In the future, Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch will determine its formal ratings after it goes public.

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