When Anthropic closed its $30 billion Series G in February FStech, one of the largest private AI raises on record, wealthy investors who wanted a seat at the table found something...
When Anthropic closed its $30 billion Series G in February FStech, one of the largest private AI raises on record, wealthy investors who wanted a seat at the table found something curious: the price of admission depended entirely on which bank they walked through.
Morgan Stanley offered its wealth management clients access to the round through a special purpose vehicle, charging a flat 1 percent placement fee and nothing more — no ongoing management fee, no carried interest. Goldman Sachs, for the same Anthropic shares, structured its own vehicle and charged clients 1.25 percent annually plus 17.5 percent of any profits above an 8 percent return threshold. On a $30 billion raise, that difference in fee extraction runs to hundreds of millions of dollars for the same underlying stake.
The Financial Times first reported the divergence, citing people familiar with the terms of both offerings. Multiple outlets, including FStech and BanklessTimes, subsequently confirmed the core facts. The numbers have not been independently verified by type0 — the primary reporting is based on unnamed sources on one side of a fee dispute — but the fee gap itself has not been contested by either bank.
Goldman Sachs also invested its own capital alongside its wealth clients in the Anthropic vehicle, a spokesperson told the FT FStech. Morgan Stanley did not, meaning it offered access without making a directional bet on the outcome. Goldman's spokesperson said the bank operates as a fiduciary investing alongside clients with a consistent, traditional fee structure. Morgan Stanley pointed to its scale as the reason it can frequently offer private markets access without management or carry fees, similar to what institutions receive.
The timing is not neutral. Anthropic is preparing for an IPO expected later this year, with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as lead banks, according to reporting by BanklessTimes. At a $380 billion post-money valuation, the bank that manages to get wealthy clients into the pre-IPO share pool at the lowest all-in cost stands to benefit most if the stock pops. The bank that extracted the highest fees in advance is insulated regardless of what happens at the opening bell.
What makes the fee divergence more than a private banking curiosity is the comparison that follows it: Morgan Stanley and Goldman both offered their clients access to OpenAI shares without charging carried interest. For Anthropic, the carry came back. Banks that declined to take performance fees on OpenAI continued to take them on Anthropic, according to BanklessTimes and Investing.com. The reason, per multiple outlets covering the secondary market: OpenAI shares have been harder to move, with demand lagging supply, while Anthropic allocations are in high demand and short supply. The fee structure is a pricing mechanism that reflects where the market thinks leverage sits.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment beyond what it had already told the Financial Times. Morgan Stanley did not respond to a request for comment. Anthropic declined to comment.
Three questions this story leaves open. First: whether Goldman's SPV structure includes any equity participation rights beyond the disclosed carry, which would mean the bank has a second-order stake in Anthropic's IPO outcome that its clients do not share. Second: whether the fee gap constitutes a disclosure issue under securities law governing private fund fees. Third: whether the unnamed sources tipping the story to the FT were clients of Morgan Stanley rather than neutral observers, which would make the reporting a selective disclosure from one side of a fee dispute rather than an independent finding.