Analysis-From SpaceX to Anthropic, markets have a new playbook for mega-share debuts

Detailed summary

By Vidya Ranganathan LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - When AI firm Anthropic starts trading after its expected IPO next week, its share price in the first few weeks will largely be determined by who is forced to buy it rather than who wants to buy it. And investors are examining SpaceX's successful June stock market debut for clues.

LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - When AI firm Anthropic starts trading after its expected IPO next week, its share price in the first few weeks will largely be determined by who is forced to buy it rather than who wants to buy it. And investors are examining SpaceX's successful June stock market debut for clues.

Elon Musk's SpaceX altered the playbook for stock-market listing by behemoths, as major US index providers such as Nasdaq rewrote the rules around inclusion, ensuring a massive pool of passive money would buy the shares in the first 15 days of its listing.

Investors expect the same dynamic with Anthropic. The Claude chatbot creator aims to raise up to $64.4 billion by selling 825 million shares priced between $70 and $78 each, valuing the firm at up to $1.4 trillion.

In the past, major index providers generally did not add companies to their benchmarks until weeks or months following their debut. Like SpaceX, Anthropic will be added to at least six big indexes, including FTSE's USA index, the S&P Total Market Index and the Nasdaq 100, within 5 to 15 days of its listing.

"Anthropic is a mirror image of the SpaceX IPO. In that regard, it has the same index-related drivers over the first 15 days of trading," said Carsten Hesse, London-based head of index events at Berenberg.

London-based index rebalance analytics firm Intropic estimates passive demand from index-tracking funds will account for about 28% of Anthropic's shares offered, or roughly $19 billion. Index-rebalancing funds and hedge funds will bid on shares to pre-position for this expected passive demand.

SpaceX earmarked a fifth of its $75 billion offering, which valued the firm at nearly $1.75 trillion, for retail investors, more than double the standard. Anthropic is doing the same.

Index funds and retail investors lapped up nearly half the SpaceX shares sold, alongside other fund managers positioning for that demand.

Similarly, a mere 6% or so of Anthropic's outstanding shares are being offered at the IPO

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