Oliver Curtis’ bid to float Firmus for $44 billion falls over

Firmus has withdrawn its application to list on the ASX, scrapping an initial public offering that would have valued the Australian data centre company at about $43.7 billion.

In a statement, the company said its board had weighed recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions. It concluded the terms on which the offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the company’s business and long-term growth outlook, and that going ahead was not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.

Firmus said it would now pursue capital from private markets and consider other public and private options. It will update shareholders as those options progress.

Some potential investors turned more cautious as the deal progressed, voicing concern over existing shareholders potentially flooding the market soon after the company’s debut, people familiar with the matter have said. The overhang added to questions over what some investors see as an aggressive pricing strategy, they said.

“I’ve never seen an IPO so polarising,” Jun Bei Liu, co-founder and lead portfolio manager at Ten Cap Investment, said on Bloomberg TV. “There was a lot of international investor interest, however, when it comes to the crunch, the demand seems like it isn’t there when they were asked to put up the capital that’s required.”

Firmus was co-founded by Oliver Curtis, the husband of public relations consultant and influencer Roxy Jacenko . He served one year in jail in 2016-17 for insider trading before co-founding Firmus as a bitcoin mining company in 2019.

Proceeds from the listing would have funded purchases of graphics processing units for its first data centre project in Batam, Indonesia, being developed with DayOne Data Centres Ltd., as part of an eight-year partnership with Nvidia. Singapore-headquartered DayOne has filed for a US IPO and is seeking to raise as much as $US5 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.

Firmus has inked a number of large deals, securing $US2 billion in commitments from investors including Nvidia and Blackstone. High-profile Australians, including billionaire James Packer, former treasurer Joe Hockey and investor Alex Waislitz, have stakes in the company, alongside fund managers Ellerston Capital and Regal Partners.

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Morgans Financial are acting as joint lead managers on the listing.

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