Anthropic plans to give individual investors a chance to buy shares of the company when it goes public as early as this month. The artificial intelligence company anticipates allocating a portion of IPO shares to brokerage customers of Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood Financial (including its TradePMR unit), SoFi, and Morgan Stanley's E*Trade, according to a Nov. 2 regulatory filing.
Anthropic's filing doesn't disclose the number of shares of Class A common stock that will be allocated. Company representatives are barred by securities law from commenting on filings during the "quiet period" before the public launch.
Participating brokerages also wouldn't comment beyond the filing. "Schwab will participate as a selling group member in the upcoming Anthropic IPO, but we don't have additional information to share at this time," a Schwab spokeswoman says. "Clients can contact us directly with questions about IPOs."
Representatives for SoFi, Robinhood, and Fidelity declined to comment. A representative for E*Trade didn't respond to a request for comment. The online brokerage is owned by Morgan Stanley, which is one of the lead underwriters.
SpaceX example. In recent years, private companies including SpaceX and Reddit have dedicated a healthy portion of their IPO shares to the retail segment. For example, SpaceX set aside about 20% of its IPO shares to individual investors when the aerospace, satellite, and artificial-intelligence company went public in June. That was double the typical amount, though the figure depends on the offering. SpaceX offered those shares through the same brokerage firms that Anthropic named in its regulatory filing.
Brokerage firms set their own requirements for individual investors to access IPOs, though some firms have lowered barriers. Last month, Fidelity cut its minimum retail asset requirement to $25,000. Previously, customers had to generally have at least $100,000 or $500,000 in assets, depending on the offering, to participate in IPOs as well as follow-on and secondary offerings. Robinhood, which launched its IPO Access offering in 2021, has no account minimums, according to its website.
Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster told Barron's last week that he wants to help make it easier for individual investors to participate in IPOs. "Historically, the allocations have gone to institutions," he said. "We're on a mission to democratize that."
He added that companies going public are also starting to appreciate that retail investors can be great shareholders, noting that Schwab customers who bought SpaceX at the IPO price have not only held on to shares, but added to their holdings.
Anthropic plans to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ANT.
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