Private credit ·
$63bn North Star financing: an SPV buys Broadcom AI racks to lease to Anthropic, with Blackstone as second-lien anchor
Bank of America, Blackstone, Citi and Morgan Stanley announced on Oct. 26 a $63 billion transaction, executed through a newly formed special purpose vehicle, to buy Broadcom XPU AI accelerators and networking equipment to be leased to Anthropic, with deliveries expected to start in calendar 2027. Bank of America, Citi and Morgan Stanley are arranging the first lien; Blackstone is the sole provider of the committed portion of the second lien. Broadcom provides residual value support equal to the first-lien amount; its slides define the potential liability as any difference between 72.5% of the outstanding amounts owed on the lease and the value of the AI racks, with peak exposure expected at $43 billion and amortizing to zero on a straight-line basis over five years of lease payments (illustrative). Milbank, counsel to the vehicle, names it Northstar Compute LLC and describes the $63 billion as debt and equity.
Why it matters for deal teams: A template for compute-lease credit at scale: lenders now have to monitor lessee payments, rack resale values and a vendor's residual-value support together, not just a borrower's financials.
Source: Broadcom investor relations (joint press release and transaction slides) ↗ · more ↗