Anthropic secured highest junk credit rating in June

Documents seen by the FT show KBRA assigned Anthropic an issuer rating of BB+ in June 2026 — one notch below investment grade and the highest speculative grade — not previously reported. The rating came in the run-up to a $35bn chip financing led by Apollo: about $4.4bn of junior debt exposed to Anthropic credit risk was rated BB+ stable by KBRA and sold at roughly 8.5% yield, with the remainder guaranteed by Broadcom and senior debt at 5.75%. KBRA used a “risk score” rather than full financial models; Anthropic supplied Q1 2026 revenue, adjusted operating income, annualised run-rate and an internal Q2 forecast, but not free cash flow or EBITDA, so analysts estimated those. At rating time Anthropic estimated Q2 revenue at $10.9bn; actual came in at $11.5bn (people familiar). Anthropic had zero debt on its own balance sheet as of late June, relying on partners and SPVs. It could issue up to $42bn of convertible notes to pay for leasing Broadcom semiconductors (detailed terms not given to KBRA). Wall Street banks are assembling a $60bn deal for Google/Broadcom custom AI chips, including $18bn of junior debt backed by Anthropic’s chip rent payments. Bankers for Anthropic and OpenAI have lobbied big agencies for investment-grade ratings post-IPO; Anthropic expects more than $500bn of compute and infrastructure spend over the next decade. Caveats: KBRA is smaller than Moody’s, S&P and Fitch; the rating rests on limited, company-selected disclosure; growth is slowing versus earlier in the year; KBRA and Anthropic declined to comment.