A Goldman Sachs logo is displayed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, on Wednesday, August 11, 2010.
Ramin Talaie | Corbis Historical | Getty Images
Alphabet‘s plan to sell $80 billion in shares to fund its artificial intelligence commitments leaves markets in “unprecedented territory”, co-chief executive officer at Goldman Sachs International Anthony Gutman told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
The Google parent company said in a statement on Monday that its equity offerings will include an allocation of $10 billion to Greg Abel’s Berkshire Hathaway to “fund investments in its world-class AI compute infrastructure to meet its unprecedented customer demand.”
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the underwritten offerings. Goldman is also acting as the placement agent for the private placement.
“Let’s start by saying this is unprecedented territory, so we all enter it with a degree of humility and caution, and the right balance of focus,” Gutman told CNBC’s Carolin Roth on Europe Early Edition Wednesday morning. “The Alphabet issuance yesterday augurs well for the pipeline. That was just a record level of issuance on any level.”
Gutman said there is “a lot of demand out there” for significant equity issuance and that, as a percentage of the total equity market capitalization, it looks “very manageable”.
It comes as capital markets look set for a record year, with a flurry of mega-IPOs in the pipeline.
SpaceX’s hotly-anticipated flotation, expected on June 12, could mark the largest IPO in history. Elon Musk’s firm is targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion on the Nasdaq.
Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic have also announced their intentions to go public later this year.
“We’re excited about it. These are exceptional companies, so they should be able to raise this capital if they navigate the path appropriately,” Gutman added.
