Bailey Lipschultz, the Bloomberg News reporter who covers the capital markets, walks through the mechanics standing between Anthropic and a September listing, what an Anthropic deal does to everybody else's calendar, and why Shein's Hong Kong debut is being marked down before it opens. This is the second of four guest segments in the episode, each summarized separately.
👤 Guest: Bailey Lipschultz, senior equities reporter at Bloomberg News, covering the capital markets and the IPO calendar
🎙️ Hosts: Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu, who present Bloomberg Intelligence's weekday markets program
📰 Published: 31 August 2026 on the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast feed
🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ 22 min
Key Takeaways
A September Anthropic listing needs a public filing by the Tuesday after Labor Day, and that is the best case
"For the company to price and debut in September, it needs to publicly be on file by the Tuesday after Labor Day."
The revolving credit facility is still unsigned, and Lipschultz called that the step everything else waits on
The deal takes the money and the attention out of the market at the same time
"I mean, it's going to take all the oxygen and including a lot of the dollars out of the marketplace."
The buyers who matter are small teams, not multistrategy pods
"They're not the Millennium IPO pods that are really playing all of these deals."
Racing to get out ahead of a mega-listing has already been tested, and it went badly
"Weighted average loss is almost 10% from the offer price." across the 14 notable deals that priced in the month before SpaceX's June listing
Shein is coming to market at a fraction of its private mark
"You mentioned just a few years ago, 2022, they raised a private round around $100 billion. So that is a huge drop off."
Investors told him they are paying a Zara or H&M multiple for a company that has not grown
A packed fall calendar has a live Fed meeting and the midterms sitting behind it
"And we should expect a pretty darn packed September into October."
Anthropic Can Only Price in September If It Files the Tuesday After Labor Day
The show's framing was that Anthropic is the listing everyone is waiting for, in September or October. Lipschultz kept the window but attached a filing deadline to it.
"Still thinking September, October, but if you understand how IPOs work."
The mechanical constraint is the public filing. "For the company to price and debut in September, it needs to publicly be on file by the Tuesday after Labor Day. So that's like kind of a best case scenario."
The step that has not happened is the revolver. Lipschultz said "they still haven't finalized their revolving credit facility", and that bringing banks outside the big four under the tent is a big step of its own
An analyst day has to come before any of it works. "And they also have to have an analyst day so the analysts can model out what they're expecting with Anthropic."
His illustration was a client calling a bank: "When you're at Goldman Sachs, if you call up your sales desk and say, hey, I want to talk to the analyst. He has to have a model to be able to share."
His own read is that the delay is a drafting problem, not a demand problem. "But in reality, they've been kind of dragging their heels with piecing together this revolving credit facility. But once that takes place, it should move pretty darn quickly."
An Anthropic Deal Takes All the Oxygen, and the Last Cohort That Raced Ahead Lost Money
Asked whether the listing crowds out everything else, Lipschultz said it does, and then gave the precedent.
"I mean, it's going to take all the oxygen and including a lot of the dollars out of the marketplace."
A few smaller, lesser-known deals have already flipped publicly, both backed by private equity and both playing the AI angle
The constraint is not capital, it is calendar time with a handful of investors. "But the big thing is if you're trying to schedule a meeting with a long-only, or if you're trying to schedule a meeting with the sovereign wealth fund, these aren't huge teams. They're not the Millennium IPO pods that are really playing all of these deals."
He said sponsors and bankers he has spoken to share that consternation
The SpaceX listing in June is the test case. Bloomberg crunched the numbers on the 14 notable deals that went public in the month before it, racing to hit the pre-SpaceX window
"Weighted average loss is almost 10% from the offer price. You're supposed to buy IPOs to make money, not lose money."
The trade-off he described is timing against exposure. Companies can flip public this week and beat Anthropic out the door, but "you don't want to be on the road at the same time. You don't want to be calling Wellington asking for them to take time to talk to your company if Dario is trying to make a visit."
A host finished the thought as the fund manager would: "They'll be like, we'll get back to you."
Shein Comes to Hong Kong With the Gray Market Already Marking It Down
A host turned to Shein, the fast-fashion company, whose "shares fell as much as 14% in Hong Kong gray market trading" ahead of its listing.
The debut was set for the following day, Lipschultz said
The private mark is the comparison that hurts. "You mentioned just a few years ago, 2022, they raised a private round around $100 billion. So that is a huge drop off."
The buy-side objection is a relative-value one. "When you talk to investors who've met with the company, the critique is, I'm paying a similar multiple for a Zara or an H&M that I'm paying for a company that hasn't seen growth, that has a lot of political uncertainty and a lot of headwinds."
The venue has moved twice. "There were reports that they wanted to go public in the US, then London, now they're listing in Hong Kong."
He treats the gray market as a forecast rather than noise. Bloomberg has been using it over recent weeks and months to inform what happens on exchange
"And even if you just go one to one or even half two to one, you're still saying this is going to be something that trades down pretty sharply."
A Packed September and October, With a Live Fed Meeting and the Midterms Behind It
Asked in 30 seconds whether a flood of deals is coming, Lipschultz said yes, and then named the two things that could spoil it.
"Definitely. We expect potentially a couple this week."
After Labor Day, he said, people are back in the seats, filings go public and formal roadshows start
"And we should expect a pretty darn packed September into October."
"Again, though, we do have a live September meeting for the Fed. So that has a bit of a concern for some of these bankers."
"And then obviously all eyes will shortly after pivot to the election in the midterms and what that does or doesn't mean for risk."
On what Anthropic will trade under: a host was hunting for an available ticker, found ANTH already taken and floated ANTR instead; Lipschultz had no idea either
The other host's answer was to price it: "I'm sure you could probably bet on it on Kalshi."
"There's a market for that. There's a market for everything."
Lipschultz's bottom line is that Anthropic's listing is held up by a credit facility rather than by demand, and that the cost of it lands on every other issuer, whose only alternative — going early — lost money the last time a mega-listing forced the same choice.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Anthropic (The listing the whole segment turns on, waiting on an unsigned revolving credit facility and an analyst day)
SpaceX (The June precedent: the 14 notable deals that priced in the month before it carried a weighted average loss of almost 10% from the offer price)
Goldman Sachs (His example of why the analyst day has to come first — a sales desk cannot put a client on the phone with an analyst who has no model)
Millennium (The comparison for who is not buying these deals: the long-only and sovereign wealth fund teams taking the meetings are small, and "They're not the Millennium IPO pods")
Wellington Management (Named as the kind of investor an issuer cannot get time with while a larger deal is on the road)
Shein (Fast-fashion group listing in Hong Kong, with gray-market shares down as much as 14% before the debut and a 2022 private round "around $100 billion" behind it)
Zara and H&M (The multiple investors told him they are already paying, for companies that have grown)
Kalshi (The hosts' answer to an unknowable ticker — "There's a market for everything.")
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