Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are competing for the lead underwriter position for the OpenAI and Anthropic IPO, with potential proceeds exceeding $7 billion.

BlockBeats News, June 10th, according to Fortune report, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are vying to be the lead underwriters for the future IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic. Previously, Goldman Sachs has secured the lead underwriter position for the SpaceX IPO, scheduled for June 12th. The IPOs of OpenAI and Anthropic are both expected to raise at least $60 billion, totaling over $120 billion. University of Florida IPO expert Jay Ritter stated that the lead underwriting investment bank will determine how much IPO stock each fund will receive, potentially allowing for much higher gains than other underwriters.

Ritter mentioned that institutional investors usually pay significant "soft dollars" to the lead underwriter in order to receive more IPO allocations, where soft dollars refer to trading commissions that exceed the actual execution costs. If it is still uncertain whether Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley will secure the lead underwriting positions for OpenAI and Anthropic, funds may allocate more trading commissions to both investment banks simultaneously to increase their chances of receiving allocations.

Using the SpaceX IPO as an example, if the funding target reaches $860 billion, the underwriting fee would be around $600 million. However, if the first-day stock price increases by 20%, IPO investors' paper gains will exceed $17 billion. Ritter estimates that at least 30% of this amount, around $5 billion, may flow back to the investment bank in soft dollars, significantly surpassing the underwriting fee itself.

If both OpenAI and Anthropic companies experience a 20% increase on their IPO debut days, investors' paper gains would reach $24 billion. Following the same ratio, the investment bank could receive over $7 billion in soft dollars, with the majority flowing to the lead underwriter. Currently, OpenAI and Anthropic have both confidentially submitted draft registration statements but have not yet determined their listing date.