Australia’s corporate regulator said on 20 October that it was making inquiries into Nvidia-backed Firmus’s withdrawn float, which had sought a valuation of up to $43.7 billion, but had not opened a formal investigation, The Epoch Times reported. Chris Savundra, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s executive director of enforcement and compliance, spoke before federal parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Firmus is a Sydney-based AI data-centre builder that had applied to list on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Key points
- ASIC is making inquiries into the withdrawn float but has not opened a formal investigation.
- Firmus had planned to sell shares at $11 each, valuing it at up to $43.7 billion.
- A finance academic said 46 megawatts of Firmus’s 912 megawatts of contracted computing capacity was running.
- Maas Group has paid $410 million for about 3.2 percent of Firmus and supplies equipment for its centres.
ASIC examines the Firmus float
Savundra told the committee that ASIC was undertaking inquiries in its usual course. “There isn’t a formal investigation on foot at this point,” he said. ASIC chief executive Scott Gregson said the regulator’s principal concern in an initial share offering was whether investors had received “misleading or deceptive information”. He said ASIC often considered that issue after the event.
Senator Dave Sharma had written to ASIC asking whether it would investigate the failed float and its related disclosures, Capital Brief reported on 14 October. His letter questioned claims made to prospective investors and the conduct of the bookbuild, the process of gathering investor orders. It also raised bankers’ claims of indicative demand at $11 a share, the termination of a deal with CDC Data Centres and whether Maas Group investors had been adequately informed.
The questions about Maas concern a company with two roles in the proposed listing. The construction and electrical engineering group owns a stake in Firmus and supplies equipment for its data centres. Its shares fell more than 40 percent after the float was withdrawn, Capital Brief reported.
Firmus’s $11 offer and August financing
Firmus withdrew its application to list on 9 October, The Epoch Times reported. Grafa placed the withdrawal on 8 October. Firmus had planned to sell shares at $11 each, putting its value at up to $43.7 billion — almost three times the value assigned to it two months earlier.
In August, Firmus raised US$2 billion from investors including Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street at a value of more than US$10.5 billion. The planned public offering would have put a new price on a business still building out much of the capacity it had contracted to provide.
AI Affairs reported Firmus’s withdrawal from the Australian listing process. Firmus Grid subsequently explored a private raise of up to $3 billion, AI Affairs reported.
Firmus’s 912 megawatts of contracted capacity
Marta Khomyn, a senior lecturer in finance and data analytics at Adelaide University, said Firmus had contracts covering 912 megawatts of computing capacity. Of that, 46 megawatts, or about 5 percent, was running. She compared that with roughly a quarter of contracted capacity at rivals such as listed Australian data-centre company NextDC.
Khomyn said Firmus also bears a different equipment risk from data-centre operators that rent customers space and power while customers supply their own chips. Firmus buys and owns the chips it uses. With Nvidia releasing new chips each year, Khomyn said, older equipment could lose value quickly and leave Firmus holding outdated hardware.
Firmus has operating sites in Melbourne and Singapore, with five more due within two years. In September, Firmus signed OpenAI as the lead client for two planned Malaysian facilities and made public its arrangements with Meta for computing capacity in Southeast Asia.
Maas Group’s stake and Firmus orders
Maas Group paid $410 million for about 3.2 percent of Firmus and has $855 million of electrical-equipment work for Firmus’s centres on its books. Its exposure therefore extends beyond the value of its shares in the data-centre builder to work ordered for its electrical business.
A sharp fall in Maas’s shares prompted a stock-exchange query on 8 October. Maas halted trading in its shares on 9 October while preparing an announcement about its dealings with Firmus. Later on 9 October, Maas said its electrical division continued work under its Firmus contracts and that Firmus had placed purchase requests worth about $1.1 billion across the 2026 and 2027 financial years.
