DealSheet - Freshfields (Trainee Associate Programme 2028)

Want to impress in your Freshfields Trainee Associate Programme Application?

This DealSheet includes:

💼 5 recent deals and cases Freshfields advised on
🧠 Clear summaries for each
⚖️ Who Freshfields advised, and the legal teams involved
💡 How to use these in your application

⏰ Deadline: 13 November

🤖 Freshfields advises on Anthropic’s $75bn IPO

In short: Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind Claude, is preparing to list on the US Nasdaq exchange in what could become one of the largest IPOs in history.

📝 Details:

• Anthropic filed its IPO registration documents with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 26 October 2026, ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT. The company has not yet confirmed the number of shares it will sell or their price.
• The IPO could raise approximately $75 billion, while reported valuation expectations have ranged from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.
• The company has appointed RetailBook to allow UK individual investors to participate in the offering through a new regulatory regime that can remove the need for a separate UK prospectus in certain circumstances.

🤔 Why it matters:

• The valuation versus profitability question. Investors are being asked to value Anthropic at potentially more than $1 trillion, despite the company continuing to incur substantial costs. The question is whether Anthropic can eventually generate enough profit to justify its enormous valuation. For the banks underwriting the IPO, assessing how these risks are presented to investors is particularly important.
• Opening US IPOs to British investors. Anthropic’s decision to use RetailBook illustrates how changes to UK financial regulation could make overseas listings more accessible to individual investors. The new Public Offer Platform regime allows companies to raise capital from UK investors through authorised platforms without necessarily preparing a separate UK prospectus. This could encourage more international businesses to include British investors in future fundraising.

Anthropic’s IPO will test investor confidence in the economics of artificial intelligence. AI companies are attracting extraordinary valuations, but investors must decide whether the potential returns are worth the billions required to develop and operate the technology.

⚖️ Who is Freshfields advising?