Firmus drops Australia IPO amid market volatility

Firmus has dropped plans for an Australian stock market listing that had been projected as one of the country's biggest-ever initial public offerings.

The Nvidia-backed AI data centre company said it had withdrawn its application to list on the Australian Securities Exchange after considering “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions”.

Firmus had hoped to raise as much as $5.5 billion, or AU$7.9 billion, amid strong global demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company said it would now pursue private funding.

The board said the terms on which the offer could proceed would not properly reflect the strength of the company's business and long-term growth outlook, and that proceeding was not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.

Jun Bei Liu, co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Ten Cap Investment, told Bloomberg TV she had “never seen an IPO so polarizing”. She said there had been international investor interest, but that demand appeared not to be there when investors were asked to provide the required capital.

Australia has promoted itself as a location for AI data centres because of renewable energy potential and large areas of sparsely populated land. The sector also faces local scrutiny over ethics and the environmental footprint of power-hungry data hubs.