Is Anthropic losing its Oura?

One IPO scoop to start: Fintech Zilch is lining up investment banks for an initial public offering as soon as next year, delivering a potential boost to the London Stock Exchange, which has been hit by a series of takeovers from the UK market.

And another thing: Manchester City artificially inflated its financial position by more than £900mn over a nine-year period in which it arranged “sham” commercial deals and overstated its income, an independent commission has found.

And an event next week: Join Arash Massoudi, team DD and some of the biggest names in private capital in London on October 6. The agenda has been finalised with a slate of additional speakers, and DD readers can apply for a pass to the FT’s Private Capital Summit here.

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In today’s newsletter:

• Anthropic’s “existential” risks on Wall Street
• Nvidia goes insurance shopping
• Patrick Drahi’s creditors strike back

Anthropic’s “existential” risks on Wall Street

Nvidia goes insurance shopping

Patrick Drahi’s creditors strike back

The IPO ‘risk factor’ keeping bankers up at night

Wall Street is watching closely as a possible fourth-quarter fee bonanza comes down to the wire. Reporters obtained the details of Anthropic’s IPO prospectus earlier this week but the AI lab still hasn’t officially released the document, even as it’s reportedly aiming for a November listing.

On Tuesday yet another tech group, the smart ring-maker Oura, postponed its own planned listing, blaming “uncertainty in the IPO market”. In recent weeks SoftBank’s US data centre developer SB Energy, the nuclear energy group Holtec International, which hopes to supply power to AI data centres, and OpenAI have all delayed their own IPO plans.

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley leaders and politicians are being forced to respond to growing anxiety over AI algorithms and data centres.

Donald Trump, who has called AI safety concerns a “hoax” and a “sick conspiracy”, hosted tech bosses including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei at the White House on Tuesday to discuss AI risks. (Trump endorsed “tremendous self-regulation” of the sector after Tuesday’s lunch.) Democrats are capitalising on voter anxiety about AI and data centres as they campaign to win back Congress in the midterm elections.

For now Anthropic’s investors are confident the group can list at a valuation of more than $2tn. According to the AI start-up’s S-1 filing, the group said it planned to spend $518bn on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in the coming years to support its rapid growth.

Anthropic’s prospectus also revealed details of its prior financial performance and governance arrangements, which were first reported by Reuters and confirmed to the FT by multiple people who have seen the filing.

Last year the company recorded an operating loss of more than $8bn as its revenue jumped 12-fold to almost $4.6bn and mounting costs for computing resources to train and run its models pushed operating expenses to almost $13bn.

This year Anthropic’s spending and revenue have both increased sharply. Revenue in the second quarter of this year was $11.5bn, and it’s on course for its second consecutive quarter of operating profit, albeit on a heavily adjusted basis.

But even more notable than the group’s heavy spending is its rather unconventional “risk factors” section, which takes up nearly a third of the filing.

Anthropic details risks including the potential of increasingly advanced AI models to manipulate, blackmail and exhibit other unpredictable behaviours. It also warns that its technology may pose “existential risks to humanity”.

DD can’t predict whether AI will wipe out the human race. But we can warn with some certainty that if Anthropic and OpenAI don’t go public soon, it sure is going to feel like the end of the world for bankers, tech funds and private capital giants.

All roads lead to Nvidia’s balance sheet

Nvidia has met with insurance companies to see if they will take on some of the risk of lending against its chips, as the tech giant seeks to enlist ever wider parts of the financial world to help customers buy more of its semiconductors.

The chipmaker had approached insurance companies about structures that could allow it to shift some of the risk of semiconductor financing to insurers and other investors, people familiar with the talks told the FT.

One idea under discussion is insurance against losses on loans to cloud computing companies, in case these so-called neoclouds default and the Nvidia chips pledged against their debt cannot be resold for enough to repay lenders. But beyond that structure, people familiar with discussions said Nvidia had explored using insurance groups to syndicate risk to alternative investors such as hedge funds.

Nvidia’s head of financial solutions Ingemar Lanevi was leading the talks, people said, adding that they are at an early stage and may not result in any deals.

But the discussions illustrate how Nvidia is casting around for new channels of capital to finance its chips, experimenting with structures across Wall Street, private capital and now the insurance world as it tries to unlock demand from buyers beyond a handful of tech giants.

The talks come as insurers launch a flurry of products aimed at the AI infrastructure build-out, including coverage for credit risk and contract breaches caused by power outages.

Now some are also offering coverage against falls in chip values. Companies including Forward Compute and American Compute have sprung up to offer residual value insurance, covering clients against a decline in the value of tech equipment.

Sticks and stones between Drahi and Apollo

In June, we wondered if the likes of Apollo and Oaktree would cut a deal with Patrick Drahi or sue him over a complex debt restructuring that the French billionaire was pursuing at Optimum Communications, the former Altice USA.

This week we got the answer when Apollo, Oaktree and dozens of other bondholders who own most of Optimum’s $21bn debt load filed a complaint in New York State court alleging all sorts of treachery by Drahi.

Among the choice words and phrases DD found in the bondholder complaint were: “brazen”, “sham”, “fraudulent scheme’s masterminds”, “Altice Way”, “bad faith ‘financial engineering’” and “lipstick on a pig”.

That’s the kind of wit you get with $3,000/hr liability management litigators these days.

The quick recap is that Drahi has attempted to shift cable television assets out of the hands of Optimum bondholders and those bondholders believe they can soon foreclose on the company if the court agrees with their interpretation of bond indentures. Drahi and Optimum have denied wrongdoing.

Big egos and big money are involved so the mudslinging could go on for a while. Hope those legal associates have a thesaurus handy for some new insults to deploy.

Job moves

• Barclays has hired Abdulrahman Juma, Anthony Dariane and Thomas Dupont from Nomura, DD is first to report. They will join the UK bank’s global markets team for the Middle East and north Africa, based in Dubai.
• BP has hired Ben Monaghan as senior vice-president for M&A. He will join from PJT Partners in early 2027.
• White & Case has hired Gail Slater, Bloomberg reports. She was previously the US justice department’s top antitrust enforcer.
• Sidley has hired James Sherlock as an M&A and private equity partner in London. He joins from Skadden.
• JPMorgan Chase has named Edward Bell head of sub-Saharan Africa investment banking.

Barclays has hired Abdulrahman Juma, Anthony Dariane and Thomas Dupont from Nomura, DD is first to report. They will join the UK bank’s global markets team for the Middle East and north Africa, based in Dubai.

BP has hired Ben Monaghan as senior vice-president for M&A. He will join from PJT Partners in early 2027.

White & Case has hired Gail Slater, Bloomberg reports. She was previously the US justice department’s top antitrust enforcer.

Sidley has hired James Sherlock as an M&A and private equity partner in London. He joins from Skadden.

JPMorgan Chase has named Edward Bell head of sub-Saharan Africa investment banking.

Smart reads

Risk alert Demand for insurance against the risk of gun violence is booming in the US, the FT reports in a Big Read, as schools, local governments, private equity real estate trusts and political campaigns buy active-assailant insurance.

Merger math A takeover of the UK fintech Monzo by Nubank could actually be a good thing for London, Lex writes. Teaming up with Nu could provide resources and the Brazilian group would have another reason to move to the UK.

Big spenders Investment in the US AI boom is on track to outpace every previous infrastructure boom including the railroads, highways and the internet, the Wall Street Journal writes.

News round-up

Barclays waters down return-to-office mandate after staff backlash (FT)

M&S strikes beauty deal with LVMH’s Sephora (FT)

Spain seeks to ban ‘vulture funds’ from housing market (FT)

Paramount loan upsized $2bn as investor demand strong (Bloomberg)

Piper Sandler holds talks to buy Perella Weinberg (WSJ)

Due Diligence is written by Arash Massoudi, Ivan Levingston, Ortenca Aliaj, Alexandra Heal, Robert Smith and Aaron Kirchfeld in London, James Fontanella-Khan, Sujeet Indap, Eric Platt, Antoine Gara, Amelia Pollard, Kaye Wiggins, Oliver Barnes and Julia Rock in New York, George Hammond and Tabby Kinder in San Francisco and Arjun Neil Alim in Hong Kong. Please send feedback to due.diligence@ft.com

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