{"id":945451,"date":"2026-10-29T18:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/945451\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:34:14","slug":"firmus-asic-to-examine-role-of-bankers-in-failed-float","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/945451\/","title":{"rendered":"Firmus: ASIC to examine role of bankers in failed float"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conduct of bankers behind the failed $44 billion Firmus float<\/a> will be scrutinised by the corporate watchdog.<\/p>\n

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chair Sarah Court confirmed to Senate estimates on Thursday the regulator will seek information about whether the demand for shares in the local AI firm was misrepresented.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

ASIC chair Sarah Court confirmed the corporate watchdog is looking into the collapsed Firmus IPO.\u00a0Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Global investment banks Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Morgans Financial headed the work in raising billions of dollars for Firmus, putting the firm’s value close to $44 billion.<\/p>\n

NSW Liberal senator David Sharma had earlier written to Court over issues regarding the proposed $43.7 billion float of the data centre company.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, he asked the ASIC chair about a letter from Morgans to investors highlighting \u201chuge demand\u201d for the float and urging them to \u201cget a rattle on\u201d if they wanted to be part of the capital raising.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would certainly be looking at that as part of these enquiries,\u201d said Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes things can be pulled out of broader correspondence, but we have got a report that makes clear that lead managers must have a reasonable basis for investor demand. That is one of the things that our inquiries will be examining,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is fair to say that we are having a look at the broad range of issues that have been reported in the media, including the engaging of the JLMs (Joint Lead Managers).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost cannot give much more than sitting here today, suffice to say that this is a very significant event, and we understand that, and we need to look at it very carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Firmus was co-founded in 2019 by Oliver Curtis.\u00a0Dominic Lorrimer<\/p>\n

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

In early October, the company sensationally scrapped its plans for a blockbuster float on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The conduct of bankers behind the failed $44 billion Firmus float will be scrutinised by the corporate watchdog.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-945451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945451","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=945451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}