Bloomberg reported on 2 November that New York City comptroller Mark Levine criticised Anthropic PBC’s planned IPO after its 26 October filing, warning that shareholders could lose power over the company. Levine said the approach could also prevent ordinary people from restraining technology he considers potentially dangerous.
“We’re seeing a very worrisome trend of disempowerment to shareholders and all the balance of power tipping towards management,” Levine told Bloomberg. He said details in the filing had raised new concerns.
The proposed Class F share gives Anthropic’s seven co-founders 50.1% of voting rights, while each holds about 1.5% of the company’s economic shares, Trending Topics reported in its account of the prospectus. The Class F share has no economic rights. Anthropic’s prospectus says holders of the publicly traded Class A shares “generally will not be able to affect the outcome” of shareholder votes or director elections.
Levine advises New York City pension funds with more than $325 billion in assets. He had urged Anthropic to delay its IPO. Levine and Anthropic had begun talks, but had not agreed to a delay as of 27 October, Trending Topics reported.
