The Firmus IPO cancelled on Friday was set to be the second-largest listing in Australian history, after Telstra in 1997. The Nvidia-backed company withdrew its application to list on the ASX, citing “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions.”
Firmus said the terms on which the offer could proceed would not reflect the strength of the business or its long-term outlook. It will look for private capital and consider other public and private options. The listing had been due on 23 October.
The company had priced the offer at A$11 a share. That implied an equity value around A$44 billion, about US$31 billion, nearly triple the A$15.5 billion valuation from an August placement. Reports through the week said advisers were already looking at a lower price after weak demand at home and offshore.
What the Firmus IPO cancelled leaves behind
Firmus builds liquid-cooled halls it calls AI factories, and leases the capacity to clients including OpenAI and Meta. It was founded in 2019. Backers include Nvidia, Blackstone and Jane Street. It runs sites in Australia and Singapore, with more in development across the region, including a campus in Tasmania.
The offer had already been hit by a partner walking. CDC Data Centres chief executive Greg Boorer said on a podcast on Monday that the plan to build 1.6 gigawatts of AI factories with Firmus, Project Southgate, was no longer going ahead. Only about 42MW was delivered, in a CDC hall in Melbourne. Firmus is continuing the build without CDC.
CDC’s chief strategy officer Jack Dan gave the company’s account to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Melbourne on Friday, the same day the IPO was pulled. CDC is part-owned by the Future Fund. It mostly serves government agencies and universities, and does not run commercial generative AI. Dan told the committee the company had been around 20 years and that “no one really cared” until the boom, and that people now assume every data centre in the country is hosting a model.
Why the book fell apart
Investors baulked at the price and at the gap between the valuation and the halls still to be built. Reuters reported that fund managers also pulled orders after being told more than half the stock could be sold by existing holders from day one. One person involved in the deal told Reuters the private round would be followed by a Nasdaq listing. The company has not confirmed that.
The national AI standards consultation closed at 5pm AEDT on Friday, the same day. Those rules would set energy, water and community conditions for large centres, and separate conditions for frontier training. Firmus was trying to list into that argument, not after it.
The ASX does not get the second Telstra. Firmus keeps the factories, and the private market.
