The planned initial public offering of Firmus Grid, an Australian operator of AI-focused data centers backed by Nvidia, collapsed within 48 hours and was formally withdrawn on Friday, according to Bloomberg. The failed IPO is being described as one of the largest recent public offering breakdowns.
Firmus had been positioning itself as a key player in AI infrastructure and targeted a roughly $30 billion company valuation for its listing in Australia. The offering was organized by Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Morgans Financial and relied heavily on allocations to U.S. asset managers. Those investors repeatedly indicated that the targeted pricing was excessive.
By Wednesday it was clear the IPO could not proceed on the original terms, triggering rescue talks. Proposals included cutting the offering size to about $3 billion and lowering the valuation into a $20–25 billion range. Overnight negotiations failed to produce a deal because overseas investors remained unwilling to participate even at reduced levels.
Part of the problem stemmed from the absence of a compulsory lock-up period for existing shareholders, meaning those investors could have sold their shares immediately on the market. By Thursday the final price and structure of the transaction were still unresolved. Shares of Maas Group Holdings, one of Firmus’s major investors, plunged a record 30 percent in Sydney.
Skepticism around the transaction had earlier warning signs. UniSuper, one of Australia’s largest pension funds, announced in July that it would steer clear of the IPO, citing insufficient clarity about Firmus’s business model. The company’s private-market valuation had risen rapidly: in April, with Coatue Management and Nvidia involved, Firmus was valued at $5.5 billion, and a subsequent funding round that included Jane Street and Blackstone pushed that figure past $10.5 billion. The $30 billion IPO target, however, did not stand up to the stricter scrutiny of public markets.
Investors also pointed to operational and financial considerations: of Firmus’s planned 912 megawatts of capacity only 46 megawatts had been completed, the company reported revenue of just $51 million in fiscal 2026, and the IPO pricing relied on profit forecasts two years out. Firmus compared its EV/EBIT multiple to that of CoreWeave, but CoreWeave has substantially higher revenue and a much longer track record.
Days before the planned listing Firmus raised guidance citing a new capacity contract with Meta, a move some investors interpreted as management overconfidence. The situation was compounded by the background of co-founder Oliver Curtis, who was jailed a decade ago for insider trading; although not an automatic disqualifier, the publicity reinforced investor caution.
Leonyid Mironov, a portfolio manager at Gavekal Capital, summarized market sentiment bluntly: "Poorly constructed, too large, terrible pricing, meaningless metrics — it all came together," adding that the company had been worth under $2 billion just a year earlier.
On Friday Firmus withdrew the IPO and began discussions with existing investors about a smaller, private capital raise instead of a public listing. The episode highlights the difference between private-market valuations and the tougher standards demanded by public capital markets, especially in capital-intensive, fast-evolving sectors such as AI data-center operations.
An AI assistant contributed to the article's preparation; the final content was edited and verified by our reporter.
