Data center operator Firmus Grid Ltd. priced its initial public offering at A$11 a share this month. The company aims to raise $5 billion, marking one of Australia’s largest listings. The bookbuild opens October 6, with an ASX debut set for October 23. This move follows strong demand for AI infrastructure.
Data center operator Firmus Grid Ltd. has priced its initial public offering at A$11 a share, seeking to raise at least $5 billion in its Australian initial public offering this month, according to terms of the deal seen by Bloomberg, ahead of one of Australia’s largest-ever IPOs.
The price implies a valuation of about A$43.7 billion ($30.3 billion) for Firmus, the terms show, falling short of earlier expectations of as much as A$50 billion. The bookbuild will open on October 6 and close October 9, unless accelerated. The company is targeting an ASX debut on October 23.
The listing is shaping up to be one of the largest-ever IPOs in Australia, on par with Medibank Pvt’s offering in 2014, which raised just a hair under $5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That would be a welcome boost to the country’s primary market, where proceeds this year are just over $1 billion, after surpassing $2 billion in each of the previous two years.
The pricing comes after weeks of roadshow both in Australia and abroad, including the US.
The company has inked a number of large deals with high-profile clients as it seeks to capitalize on artificial intelligence demand. It secured $2 billion in commitments from investors including Jane Street, Blackstone Inc. and Nvidia Corp. in August, and raised $505 million in a Coatue Management LLC-led funding round in April.
The proceeds would fund purchases of graphics processing units for its first data center project in Batam, Indonesia being developed with DayOne Data Centers Ltd., as part of an eight-year partnership with US chip giant Nvidia Corp.
Bank of America Securities, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Morgans Financial Ltd. are acting as joint lead managers.
Firmus, which began as a Bitcoin mining operation in the Australian state of Tasmania in 2019, has benefited from surging demand for AI infrastructure in the Asia Pacific region, with a pipeline of data center projects in Australia and Singapore. Its co-chief executive officers are Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis.