AI Business & Funding

Anthropic's IPO Order Book Hits Six Times Covered as Banks Turn Away Buyers in China and Hong Kong

Demand for what could be the biggest IPO on record is running ahead of SpaceX's pace, Reuters reports, but Bloomberg says underwriters are refusing orders from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong institutions, partly over U.S. arms-export rules. Investors are also questioning how long Claude's lead can last.

DailyMech Staff

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Anthropic's IPO Order Book Hits Six Times Covered as Banks Turn Away Buyers in China and Hong Kong
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Illustrative photo of a trading setup with market charts. It does not show Anthropic's order book, its underwriters or any Nasdaq data.

Anthropic's initial public offering is drawing heavy demand, and some of it is being turned away at the door.

By the end of Thursday, Nov. 12, orders for Anthropic's shares had reached about six times the number on offer, according to Reuters, which cited a person familiar with the offering. That is faster than SpaceX, whose IPO was two times oversubscribed by the end of its second roadshow day, Reuters said. At the same time, Bloomberg reported on Friday that institutional investors based in mainland China and Hong Kong have been excluded from placing orders, with some banks citing U.S. arms-export rules.

Anthropic declined to comment on the demand figures to Reuters and on the China exclusion to The Decoder.

At a glance

Item Detail Source
Demand About 2x covered after day one; about 6x by end of Thursday Reuters, citing people familiar
Offering Up to $64.4 billion; 825 million shares at $70 to $78 Reuters
Valuation Up to $1.4 trillion Reuters
Timing Pricing expected Nov. 18; Nasdaq trading Nov. 19 as "ANT" Reuters; The Decoder
Lead banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, plus 20 other banks The Decoder
China and Hong Kong Institutional orders refused or allocations unlikely Bloomberg, via The Decoder and Investing.com
Reason cited Partly the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) Bloomberg

Who is being shut out

According to Bloomberg, several banks handling the deal have either refused to take orders from mainland Chinese and Hong Kong institutions or consider it unlikely those orders would receive allocations, citing people familiar with the matter. Some prospective investors are still pursuing possible ways to bid. The constraints were partly due to ITAR, the U.S. rules that govern the export of defense-related goods and services.

Investing.com, summarizing the Bloomberg report, said the restrictions are not explicitly detailed in Anthropic's IPO prospectus. It said a family office linked to a Chinese technology founder was reportedly trying to place an order through a British Virgin Islands trust, while others were weighing special-purpose vehicles and swap arrangements. It also noted a precedent: Chinese and Hong Kong investors were similarly excluded from SpaceX's initial offering but could buy shares once trading began.

The Decoder noted that Anthropic's products are not officially available in China or Hong Kong, and that the company has blocked Chinese-controlled firms from its services and fought workarounds used to reach Claude Code.

The exclusion applies to IPO allocations, not necessarily to buying shares after listing, Investing.com noted. But it shows how far U.S.-China competition over AI now reaches: from chips and model access into who may own a piece of a frontier lab on day one.

How hot is the book?

The Anthropic roadshow runs through next Wednesday, when the company is expected to price the deal, according to Reuters. Anthropic and its banks are meeting investors in New York, Boston and San Francisco. The book was about two times covered at the end of Tuesday, the first day, one person told Reuters; by the end of Thursday it was six times covered, another said.

A single-digit multiple would be modest for many hot IPOs, but bankers and investors told Reuters the demand is impressive given the size of the offering, and they expect the book to grow substantially as the roadshow goes on. An earlier Reuters report, citing Bloomberg News, said bankers had told prospective investors that Anthropic will prioritize existing backers, so some would-be buyers may receive smaller allocations than they expected.

Reuters put the offering at up to $64.4 billion, with Anthropic and some existing shareholders selling 825 million shares priced between $70 and $78 each, valuing the Claude maker at up to $1.4 trillion. Investing.com put the total at up to $90.4 billion when a concurrent private placement is included.

The questions investors are asking

Strong demand has not settled the debate over value. Investors are grappling with two questions, Reuters reported: whether Anthropic can keep its lead as rivals such as Google catch up in advanced models, and whether Claude's strength in coding will carry over to the broader market for knowledge workers.

Some also want more information. One investor who attended a roadshow meeting told Reuters the company had not given detailed answers to some questions. One group meeting did not include a conference call that would let institutional investors dial in and ask questions, an investor said, and representatives from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley largely read from prepared remarks. Morgan Stanley declined to comment to Reuters; Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond.

The valuation models hinge on revenue that has not happened yet. Banks estimate Anthropic's 2028 revenue at around $270 billion to $280 billion, two people told Reuters. Some sell-side projections put 2026 revenue at about $52 billion to $53 billion and 2027 at $135 billion to $137 billion. Certain buy-side forecasts run 10% to 15% higher for those years, while one investor who passed on the deal is about 30% below the sell-side estimate for 2028. SpaceX and CrowdStrike are among the companies being used as benchmarks.

Why it matters

Anthropic's listing is a referendum on the AI boom's economics. A six-times book suggests large investors want exposure to a frontier lab even at a trillion-dollar-plus price. The gap between forecasts, and the complaints about disclosure, show that they are buying a growth story more than a track record.

The China exclusion adds a second layer. If underwriters are treating a frontier model developer's stock with the caution usually reserved for defense contractors, that is a signal of how Washington and Wall Street now see these companies: as strategic assets, not just software vendors.

What to watch

Watch the final order book and price on Nov. 18, and whether the deal prices at or above the top of the $70 to $78 range. Watch whether Anthropic or its banks address the China and Hong Kong exclusion publicly, and whether workaround structures such as trusts or swaps draw regulatory attention. And watch the first trading days on Nov. 19 for the answer to the question Reuters says investors keep asking: how durable is Claude's lead?

How we reported this

DailyMech read the two Reuters reports, The Decoder and Investing.com's summary in full. Bloomberg's report on the China and Hong Kong exclusion was read only to its paywall, so details beyond its opening paragraphs come from The Decoder's and Investing.com's accounts of it. Demand figures come from unnamed people and may change. DailyMech contacted no one for this article.

Published November 14, 2026. Facts checked against the cited sources by DailyMech's AI writer.

Sources

DailyMech used AI tools to research and draft this article. Facts were checked against the cited sources by DailyMech's AI writer, not by a human editor.

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