9 октября 2026 года австралийская компания, занимающаяся созданием центров обработки данных и поддерживаемая Nvidia, отказалась от одного из крупнейших за последние десятилетия выходов на фондовый рынок в стране. Компания Firmus надеялась привлечь до 5,5 млрд долларов и достичь ...
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An Australian data-center firm backed by Nvidia walked away from one of the country’s largest stock listings in decades on 9 October 2026. Firmus had hoped to raise as much as $5.5 billion and reach a value near $30 billion. Buyers would not pay the asking price. The company now looks to private money instead.
The pullback arrived only days after bankers said early demand looked strong. It is the second big data-center listing attempt to stall in recent weeks. Readers who follow capital flows will want the plain numbers: how much capacity is actually running, how much debt sits on the books, and where the new cash was meant to go.
What the company tried to sell
Firmus began in 2019 as a bitcoin-mining operation in Australia. It later shifted toward buildings it calls “AI factories.” These sites use liquid cooling and Nvidia hardware. The firm says customers include OpenAI and Meta. It has an eight-year partnership with Nvidia and is developing a project in Batam, Indonesia, with DayOne Data Centers.
The planned listing on the Australian Securities Exchange aimed to sell shares at A$11 each. That price implied an equity value of about A$43.7 billion, or roughly $30.4 billion. Including an extra allotment option, the raise could have reached $5.5 billion. Local reports called it potentially the largest Australian float since Telstra in 1997.
Company documents seen by Bloomberg put the pipeline near 912 megawatts. Only about 46 megawatts had been built. Other accounts put finished capacity even lower, near 42 megawatts against a planned gigawatt. Two small sites were already leased in Melbourne and Singapore. Five more were planned across Australia and Southeast Asia.
Valuation had climbed fast. An April round led by Coatue put the firm near $5.5 billion. An August round that included Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street lifted it to about $10.5 billion. The October listing asked public buyers for roughly three times the August figure.
Why the books closed without a deal
On 8 October the book closed with no clear final price. Reports from the Australian Financial Review, carried by Reuters Breakingviews, said the offer had already been cut toward A$8, a drop of about 25 percent, and bankers were trying to hold A$8.25. Late on Thursday the board chose to withdraw rather than keep cutting.
The company statement on Friday was direct: “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.” Firmus will withdraw its listing application and seek private capital, and it left open a later public sale, possibly in New York. Reuters reported the same plan.
Jun Bei Liu of Ten Cap told Bloomberg Television she had “never seen an IPO so polarizing.” International interest existed, she said, yet “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.”
Australian managers were blunt. Morningstar’s Lochlan Halloway pointed to a “wild increase in valuation in such a short period.” Merlon’s Kirit Hara said his process stops him from buying “hopes and dreams.” Katana’s Romano Sala Tenna said the team was “struggling with the fundamental arithmetic.” Plato called the stock a “screaming short” and listed roughly 30 concerns. Shares of backer Maas Group fell as much as 30 percent in Sydney before a trading halt.
A further cloud appeared mid-week. Reuters sources said CDC Data Centres’ chief told a podcast that a large joint development plan with Firmus was no longer going ahead. That report helped orders fall after bankers had earlier described the book as covered.
Debt, the new math, and where the money would have gone
Analysts working with the lead banks put Firmus debt near $30 billion. At the original A$11 price the equity and the debt were roughly equal. At A$8.25 the equity value fell to about $23 billion, several billion below the debt. At A$8 it sat near $22 billion. In short, at the price bankers were defending, owners’ stake would have been worth less than what the firm owed lenders before a single day of trading.
The draft prospectus, according to Reuters, forecast a $77 million loss in the first half of fiscal 2027 and gave no forecasts past June 2027. Morningstar noted debt roughly six times the firm’s own forecast earnings.
Bankers leaned on a metric labeled EV+1/EBIT+2. It takes the enterprise value expected in twelve months and divides by earnings hoped for two years later. The idea is that data-center builders fund most construction with debt and can start earning within a year, so today’s figures look weak. Critics, including Breakingviews, called the tool easy to shift: higher capital-spending guesses raise the top number, and any delay in permits, power, water or machines pushes both dates further out.
About half the new shares were set aside for existing strategic and financial holders, a group that includes Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street. Pre-listing owners could also sell up to 20 percent of their stakes from day one. Bloomberg said that overhang, plus the price, made some buyers cautious.
Proceeds were meant to buy Nvidia graphics processors for the Batam project. Nvidia is already an investor. Money raised partly from existing backers would return to Nvidia for chips. The same pattern has appeared in other Nvidia-linked data-center financings. Lead managers were Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Morgans. Three of the world’s largest research desks therefore had no independent note on the deal.
Two readings of the same facts
One reading, offered by the board, is that market swings and higher borrowing costs simply made the available terms unfair to the long-term story. The pipeline is large, the Nvidia tie is real, and private buyers may still fund the build. Fund managers quoted by Reuters said the failure reflected questions about Firmus itself, not about artificial-intelligence demand in general. Goldman research, cited in market notes, still sees global AI investment above $1 trillion this year, with the United States and Asia taking most new data-center power.
The other reading, offered by the funds that stayed away, is that the price asked public buyers to pay for capacity that is mostly still on paper, while debt is already heavy and a key local partner had stepped back. Rising government-bond yields (the ten-year Treasury touched 5.36 percent mid-week, a multi-decade high) make the cost of carrying that debt higher. SoftBank’s SB Energy had already delayed marketing of its own large data-center listing in late September after questions over valuation and reliance on a single customer. DayOne, Firmus’s Batam partner, is itself said to be preparing a U.S. listing. The line of similar deals is long; the ones with power already switched on and contracts already signed are finding buyers more easily.
Ray Dalio, speaking in Singapore, called the broader AI build-out a classic bubble nearing a test because of rising rates and the debt behind the buildings. Mike Novogratz said it is the biggest bubble of our lifetime yet not ready to burst. The listing window supplies a practical test: early holders could not hand the paper to new buyers at the price they wanted. That test has now failed twice in three weeks.
What the pull means for the wider build
None of the public statements claim that spending on AI hardware has stopped. Nvidia continues to sell chips. Large technology firms with strong balance sheets can still borrow or use their own cash. The open question is who will fund the next wave of standalone data-center developers that carry high debt and limited operating history.
Private credit, project loans secured by the chips themselves, and special vehicles are the routes still open, according to market letters. Life-insurance money managed by firms such as Apollo and Blue Owl has already appeared in other U.S. data-center deals. Those lenders price risk differently from stock buyers who must mark a growth story every day.
For readers tracking related capital and technology shifts, earlier notes on this site examined how oil revenues moved when prices jumped (Russia’s oil week) and how governments and labs are framing AI rules (King Charles AI gathering). Factory automation stories sit nearby as well (China robot plant).
Firmus has not published a new timetable. Its statement says shareholders will hear more as private options advance. The original plan had called for a prospectus on 12 October and trading on 23 October. Both dates are now off. Whether later private rounds clear at prices closer to the August level, or whether the Batam build slows, will show how much of the earlier markup the market is willing to keep.
Sources and further reading
Primary reports: Reuters, 9 October 2026; Bloomberg, 8 October 2026; BBC, 9 October 2026; Nikkei Asia, 9 October 2026; The Guardian, 9 October 2026.
Original analysis drawn from market reporting published 8–9 October 2026, including ZeroHedge coverage of the same book-build and related credit notes dated 7–8 October 2026.
Disclaimer: This account rests on company statements and contemporaneous reports from Reuters, Bloomberg, the Australian Financial Review, BBC and others. Valuation and debt figures are those cited by the outlets above; they can change with new filings. Readers should check primary documents before acting. The piece presents the board’s stated reasons and the objections raised by fund managers side by side.
