Update, 9 October 2026: Firmus withdrew its ASX float. The board cited “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions” and the company said it would seek capital from private markets instead. The background on the planned listing is below.
AI data centre company Firmus withdrew its planned ASX float on 9 October 2026, abandoning a raise of about A$7 billion that would have been the second-largest float in Australian history, behind only Telstra’s A$14 billion listing in 1997.
The withdrawal came days after Firmus set its share price and roughly two weeks before trading was due to begin. It was the highest-profile test yet of public market appetite for AI infrastructure in Australia, and its failure suggests investors are applying more scrutiny to the capital-heavy data centre buildout behind the AI boom.
Why it was pulled
In a statement, the board said that having considered market volatility and conditions, proceeding with the offer “was not in the best interests of the company”, ACS Information Age reported. Firmus said it would pursue private capital and consider other options.
The bookbuild reportedly fell short of expectations, despite earlier claims of interest well above the offer size. At A$11 a share, the float implied a market capitalisation of about A$43.7 billion, ACS Information Age reported, compared with a valuation of about A$15 billion roughly two months earlier. Bloomberg had flagged the company’s limited operating track record and future financing needs as risks.
What was planned
The offer opened to institutions from 6 October, with retail bids scheduled from 12 to 19 October and trading expected in late October. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgans Financial were joint lead managers.
Before the float, Firmus raised money from investors including Nvidia, Blackstone and Coatue. According to ACS Information Age, the company planned to spend about A$4.4 billion of the proceeds on servers and deployment in Tasmania and Southeast Asia, and had 46 megawatts of compute running with 865 megawatts in its pipeline.
The company
Firmus was founded in Sydney in 2019 by Oliver Curtis, Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee, and began as a bitcoin miner before pivoting to AI data centres in 2024. Curtis is chief executive. It operates and is building sites across Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, with a major presence in Tasmania. OpenAI has signed up for capacity at two of its Malaysian sites, DCD reported.
The immediate challenge is funding its projects on schedule without public market money. Whether Firmus returns to the ASX remains open.
This article describes a withdrawn IPO and is not financial advice.
Jack’s take
When I covered the float, my view was that the money in AI is going into buildings and power more than apps. The pull says more about where investors sit on AI infrastructure right now than about one company: big numbers are getting a lot more scrutiny. Whether Firmus comes back to the ASX is the next thing I will be watching.