(Bloomberg) — Banks plan to sell about $21 billion of investment-grade bonds starting early next year as part of a $63 billion financing plan that Broadcom Inc. has put in place to help finance chips for AI developer Anthropic PBC.
Most read on Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley helped broker the $63 billion deal, and other banks are expected to commit to joining in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter. Banks are lending about $42 billion, with nearly half expected to be refinanced into the U.S. investment-grade corporate bond market in the first quarter of 2027, they said, asking not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
Financing is being closely watched on Wall Street and Silicon Valley, as bankers and tech executives seek to ensure investors are still eager to lend to artificial intelligence projects. While companies have managed to borrow more than $455 billion in global markets this year to finance AI spending, there are signs that fund managers are increasingly reluctant to invest in debt, given the additional sums that could come.
The deal aims to help AI model maker Anthropic pay for equipment including chips for data centers, with Broadcom essentially offering vendor financing. It is a special purpose company that borrows money to pay for technology, which it will lease to Anthropic, whose rents will in turn pay off the debt, the sources said.
The $42 billion portion of the debt is senior secured, meaning lenders have a priority claim on the special purpose company’s assets, the sources said. Broadcom provides residual value support – a sort of financial safety net – for this portion of the debt. Banks have taken up the senior secured tranche of the $63 billion financing, one of the sources said.
The bonds that are ultimately sold will likely mature in about five years and the principal on the debt will likely be repaid over the life of the bonds. The final amount of the bond issue, as well as the timing, will depend on market conditions, the source said.
Gn bussni
