Anthropic IPO: Are 5 types of shares too many?

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Anthropic is going for a very unusual setup. The post Anthropic IPO: Are 5 types of shares too many? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

As we've been documenting extensively here at the Fool, investors all around the globe are bracing for the imminent initial public offering (IPO) of Anthropic. Anthropic is one of the leading AI companies in the world. It is most famous for its cutting-edge Claude platform, which has exploded in popularity over the past year or two.

Now, Anthropic is hoping to turn its financial success into a successful float on the public markets. The IPO has been scheduled for next week on Thursday, 19 November (US time), and plans on raising as much as US$65 billion. If that all goes to plan, it would give Anthropic a market capitalisation well over US$1 trillion.

As you may already be aware, Anthropic is copying the playbook first pioneered by SpaceX by offering investors all over the world a chance to directly participate in this IPO. I've already had numerous emails from my own brokers asking if I want to participate in this 'exclusive opportunity'.

Now, despite Anthropic's blistering growth, I've already laid out why I won't be participating in the Anthropic IPO, and why I think most investors should be careful if they wish to do so. However, there's another aspect of this company that I wish to discuss today. One that raises even more red flags for me as an investor.

If you weren't aware, a minority of US stocks often employ multi-tiered share structures. These companies are usually tech stocks, and use different classes of shares in order to allow their founder and early investors to retain control whilst being able to dilute their financial stake in the company.

For example, Google-owner Alphabet has three classes of shares. There's Class A (which uses the ticker 'GOOGL'), Class C ('GOOG'), and Class B. Class A shares are traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange and give their owner one vote per share. Class C shares are also publicly traded, but don't come with any voting rights. To be clear, Class C shares still grant ownership and rights to a share of the company's profits.

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