Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) are organizing separate banking teams to work on potential stock market debuts by OpenAI and Anthropic.
The move aims to prevent sensitive information from crossing between two direct competitors. The two banks reportedly expect to be involved with both transactions while keeping the coverage groups walled off from one another.
The setup departs from typical IPO playbooks, in which a lead bank usually avoids representing two rivals going to market simultaneously.
The banks are assigning different bankers to each mandate, even as both offerings are expected to include broad syndicates with multiple firms, sources.
During the 2019 IPOs of Lyft and Uber, the work was divided among different lead underwriters rather than shared by the same top banks, according to TipRanks.
JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse, and Jefferies led Lyft's deal, and Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America handled Uber's IPO.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic submitted confidential IPO filings earlier in June, which can keep documents out of public view while companies gauge timing. Neither company has set a definitive timeline for its IPO debut. Tipranks noted that the earliest scenario discussed was August, though expectations have shifted toward a period after early September.
OpenAI has suggested a public offering may not be imminent because it wants to complete certain priorities while staying private.
"We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it's a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best," the statement read.
Meanwhile, Anthropic is contending with policy and regulatory complications, including U.S. government limits on foreign access to newer models and an unresolved disagreement tied to a Pentagon designation.
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