Apollo, Blackstone & Anthropic Jumbo Deal on TPU Chips
This week we saw APO 0.00%↑and BX 0.00%↑ announce a monster $36B TPU deal involving Google, Anthropic and Broadcom. While the deal is still fluid, our understanding of the transaction based on various news reports is as follows:
SPV to be funded via $35.5B of private debt and $0.5B of equity (est.)
Debt is split between
Senior debt of $31B (A1 = $6B and A2 = $25B)
Junior piece of $4.5B
SPV acquires Google TPUs (on a delayed draw basis as and when delivered) and subsequently leases these to Anthropic
Anthropic lease cashflows is utilised towards debt service
Senior tranche benefits from a Broadcom residual value guarantee (thus achieving investment grade status) while the junior/equity is more exposed to TPU chip RV risk
This type of transaction is very much in keeping with the multiple case studies we covered when looking at Athene:
Apollo asset management originates the transaction
Anthropic gets chips without having to use its balance sheet
Google/Broadcom g…