Firmus Said to Plan Allocating Half of IPO to Early Backers

Firmus Grid Ltd. plans to allocate about half of the shares in its initial public offering to existing shareholders, putting Nvidia Corp and Blackstone Group in a position to increase their stakes, according to people familiar with the matter.

The data center operator received indications from investors well in excess of the offer size, said the people, who asked not to be identified to discuss private considerations. Firmus is seeking to raise as much as $5.5 billion, including a greenshoe option, in one of Australia’s largest-ever IPOs. The close of the bookbuilding process was also moved up to Thursday from Friday, the people said.

Deliberations are ongoing and details of the deal may change, the people said. Firmus declined to comment.

Firmus priced the IPO at A$11 a share, implying a valuation of about A$43.7 billion ($30.3 billion), falling short of earlier expectations.

The listing is shaping up to be one of the largest-ever listings 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 company may eventually seek a dual-listing on the Nasdaq, Chief Financial Officer Kristy Godfrey-Billy told investors in a private briefing, according to the Australian Financial Review.

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 Nvidia and Blackstone. Other existing shareholders include Jane Street, while Firmus also 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 Nvidia.

Firmus is joining in a wave massive fundraising by firms along the AI supply chain, which has boosted IPO markets from the US to Hong Kong and China. Other deals vying for investors the rest of the year include the mega listing of Claude chatbot maker Anthropic PBC.

Read more: AI Deal Frenzy Powers Hong Kong Fundraising to Record Summer

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.

Read More on IPOs:
For the latest news on equity capital markets activity in the Asia-Pacific region, follow the channel or visit NI BFWECMAS. To subscribe to ECM Watch, Bloomberg’s daily roundup of news from around the region, click here.