Datacentre company’s sensational entry to the ASX did not go as planned – but investors may have sidestepped a disaster

On Monday, it was going to be one of Australia’s biggest ever stock market listings, promising investors a stake in an AI-enhanced future of liquid-cooled datacentres packed with Nvidia microchips.

By Friday, Firmus Technologies had sensationally withdrawn its ASX listing plans after the promised demand for its much-hyped investor pitch went missing.

With retail investors spared a potentially disastrous investment, attention now turns to brash claims made by Firmus’s backers, and the long-term viability of the business.

Here is how the week unfolded, and the plans imploded, based on accounts from multiple sources briefed on the matter, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

On Monday, Firmus was gearing up for its bookbuild, where its investment bankers – Morgans, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Bank of America – record investor demand to determine the official price and allocation of shares ahead of an ASX debut.

The identical messages from the bankers read: “At the fixed price, indications are well in excess of the offer size.”

The initial public offering (IPO) was set to be priced at $11 a share, raising more than $7bn from investors valuing the company at $44bn, about the same size as Australia’s biggest supermarket chain, Woolworths.

It would represent an eye-watering valuation for a startup with just two small operational sites, which was valued at less than $2bn in 2025.

The banker messages also said 50% of the deal would be going to the existing strategic investors, which meant they only had to raise about $3.5bn in new capital. Firmus had no fewer than five retail brokers also on the job.

The messages implied that demand greatly exceeded supply, and hesitant investors should get on board. In such a scenario, the ASX debut was assured to be an overwhelming success, leading to immediate financial gains for those who invested.

The personal fortunes of Oliver Curtis, who has spent time in prison for insider trading , his cousin Tim Rosenfield, and Curtis’s former brother-in-law Jonathan Levee, would also soar.

On Tuesday, the bookbuild opened as expected, and there were no public signs of stress.

Behind the scenes, however, investment houses were concerned after seeing updated information that showed well over 50% of the register, including shares controlled by Wall Street firms Blackstone, Jane Street and Coatue, could be sold straight after Firmus listed on 23 October.

Even Curtis, who was thought to have his shares locked up in what are called escrow arrangements, could use a financial instrument that would allow him to immediately “monetise” most of his stake. This complicated arrangement was first noted by the AFR .

This all raised questions, according to Rob Talevski, the chief executive of Webull Securities Australia, over whether retail investors could become the “liquidity exit strategy for some of the early investors”.

Retail investors had been burned before on smaller IPOs. Shares in datacentre operator DigiCo Infrastructure have lost more than half their value since listing in late 2024, in an otherwise strong market.

On Wednesday, Firmus’s bankers were not getting the demand they expected from within Australia or by US investors who were supposed to see Firmus as a good way to get exposure to the AI boom across Asia.

As pressure mounted, the bankers sought $US150m bids from overseas hedge funds, known in the industry as “liquidity providers”, which are typically only interested in a quick turnaround profit.

Bankers would not usually approach them in this scenario unless they were desperate.

Firmus was looking towards the IPO for capital to build its datacentre pipeline of seven contracted and four planned facilities, with almost all of its anticipated revenue relying on the unbuilt facilities.

“If they can’t get access to funding, they’ve got a major problem, as they don’t have a business,” says one investment manager who followed the bookbuild this week.

“The problem they have is that if they keep raising more money privately, there might not be an exit for those investors, because the exit was always meant to be the IPO.”

By Wednesday afternoon, the bankers were trying to reprice the shares at $9 a piece rather than $11, wiping billions of dollars from Firmus’s valuation. There was also a move to reduce the raising from about $7bn to just over $4bn.

Given commitments from its existing backers, it would only need to raise a bit over $700m, a modest sum, especially in Australia where super funds regularly manage hundreds of billions of dollars.

On Thursday, the re-pricing efforts continued with the offer price dropping to $5.50, or half the initial $11 price.

Every time the price changed, Firmus’s bankers needed to get new commitments from interested parties – to see if they were still on board.

“Once it starts to go off the rails, it’s a slippery slope down, and the momentum built against it,” a second fund manager who followed the bookbuild told Guardian Australia.

Firmus was supposed to have successfully closed the bookbuilding process on Thursday – which had been moved forward because of the interest the company said it had – in preparation for the ASX listing.

Instead, Firmus representatives abruptly withdrew from a scheduled appearance at a parliamentary inquiry into artificial intelligence amid harried discussions to save the IPO .

On Friday, Firmus said it had withdrawn its application to list on the ASX, citing recent “market volatility and prevailing market conditions”.

Interestingly, with global tech indices hovering near all-time highs, it was arguably the best time for Firmus to list on the ASX.

A spokesperson said: “Firmus will now pursue capital from the private markets and consider alternative public and private market options.”

A third fund manager who followed the bookbuild says retail investors have sidestepped a disaster.

“This was actually a good example of sense prevailing and something that should never have happened actually being stopped in time.

“If it got on to the ASX it was going to end in tears.”

Firmus did not respond to additional questions. The four investment banks managing the bookbuild were contacted for comment.