{"id":920235,"date":"2026-10-08T04:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920235\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T04:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:54:12","slug":"firmus-ipo-biggest-australian-listing-this-century-in-doubt-as-ai-start-up-scrambles-for-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/920235\/","title":{"rendered":"Firmus IPO: Biggest Australian listing this century in doubt as AI start-up scrambles for support"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest listing on the Australian<\/a> sharemarket since Telstra went public last century appears to be hanging in the balance, as local AI giant Firmus reportedly scrambles for support from would-be investors.<\/p>\n

The company<\/a> had been expected to list on the ASX in just two weeks<\/a>, on October 23, and price its shares at $11 each.<\/p>\n

\"Firmus<\/p>\n

Firmus co-chief executives Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis. After initial excitement, the company\u2019s IPO has reportedly run into trouble.\u00a0Firmus<\/p>\n

That would raise about $7 billion for the firm and value it at just shy of $44 billion \u2013 the biggest price tag for an Australian company<\/a> since Telstra in 1997.<\/p>\n

However, reports since Wednesday night from multiple outlets, including the Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, state Firmus is scaling back its asking price from $11 to $9 or even $8.25 per share.<\/p>\n

That would trim the company\u2019s valuation to as low as $32.78 billion, assuming the same number of shares are listed.<\/p>\n

One report even speculated the October 23 IPO could be scrapped, although that is far from confirmed at the time of writing.<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au has contacted Firmus for comment about those reports.<\/p>\n

The offering price drop alone, though, is a significant turnaround in a matter of mere days for Firmus.<\/p>\n

Just this week, the company has gone from saying the interest from prospective investors was far greater than the size of its listing to scrambling to stop the float from taking on water.<\/p>\n

Firmus was founded in 2019 by Oliver Curtis \u2013 the husband of Sydney publicist Roxy Jacenko, and a previously convicted insider trader \u2013 his cousin Tim Rosenfield, and former brother-in-law Jonathan Levee.<\/p>\n

Backed by major companies including tech behemoth Nvidia and investment giant Blackstone, it has an unusual set-up among data centre operators.<\/p>\n

Unlike other companies in the sector, which typically only provide the land and some limited infrastructure for tech companies to house their servers, Firmus promotes itself as having a \u201cfull-stack infrastructure\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Firmus claims to be far more energy- and water-efficient than other data centre operators.\u00a0Tasmanian government<\/p>\n

\u201cWe design, build and operate the entire platform, from the chip to the grid,\u201d the company states.<\/p>\n

It also lends out Nvidia computer chips to AI<\/a> companies.<\/p>\n

It claims to be significantly more energy- and \u2013 crucially \u2013 water-efficient, using up to 99 per cent less water for cooling than other data centre providers.<\/p>\n

However, after the initial excitement about the IPO, analysts have pointed to a series of potential red flags for investors.<\/p>\n

Firmus has about $US30 billion in debt \u2013 roughly as much as the $43.7 billion valuation it aspires to.<\/p>\n

That latter figure is also a huge jump from the $US10.5 billion (approximately $15 billion) valuation it received during a fundraising round just two months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the bulls, that increase reflects the extraordinary growth in contracted capacity, new customer agreements and the strategic value of AI infrastructure,\u201d Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said.<\/p>\n

\"Telstra<\/p>\n

Firmus was set to enjoy the biggest listing on the ASX since Telstra went public in the 1990s.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the bears, investors are being asked to pay today for a very large amount of capacity, earnings and cash flow that still need to be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Firmus would be one of the few artificial intelligence companies on the ASX \u2013 providing one of the only avenues for Australian investors to gain exposure to the AI-driven tech boom \u2013 another analyst said the lack of detail around the firm is \u201cunprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirmus is probably one of the most polarising IPOs I have ever seen,\u201d Ten Cap portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu said in a research note on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of detail they disclose is unprecedented.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Firmus is a very high-risk proposition \u2013 very high profile, but with enormous risk involved.<\/p>\n

\u201c97 per cent of the data centre capacity they\u2019ve promised hasn\u2019t even been built.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might deliver cheaper earnings in two years if they build what they promise, but that\u2019s speculative.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest listing on the Australian sharemarket since Telstra went public last century appears to be hanging in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-920235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}