Australian data centre company Firmus Grid has shelved its initial public offering plan and will consider other funding options.
Firmus will withdraw its application to list on the Australian Securities Exchange, according to a statement on Oct 9.
“Having considered recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions, the board determined that the terms on which the offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the strength of the company’s business and long-term growth outlook,” it said.
“Firmus will now pursue capital from the private markets and consider alternative public and private market options.”
Bloomberg News earlier reported the company was set to postpone listing plans and was instead weighing a private funding round, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Nvidia-backed company is in talks with existing investors and others for a private funding round, according to people familiar, asking not to be identified as the information is not public.
Order-taking for the IPO closed as scheduled on the morning of Oct 8, yet there was no clear indication of the price or deal structure, Bloomberg News reported earlier.
Firmus was looking to raise as much as US$5.5 billion (S$7 billion), including a greenshoe option, at a price that would have implied a valuation of A$43.7 billion (S$38.9 billion).
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 began as a Bitcoin mining operation in Australia in 2019 and has benefited from surging demand for AI infrastructure across Asia, with a pipeline of data centre projects in Australia and Singapore.
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 Centers, 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 US$5 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.
Firmus has inked a number of large deals, securing US$2 billion in commitments from investors including Nvidia and Blackstone. Other existing shareholders include Jane Street, while Firmus also raised US$505 million in a Coatue Management-led funding round in April.
Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley and Morgans Financial. are acting as joint lead managers on the listing. Bloomberg
Source : https://www.straitstimes.com/business/nvidia-backed-firmus-shelves-ipo-eyes-private-funding
