The Firmus IPO Died on Delivered Megawatts, Not on Price

The $5 billion float meant to fund Australia’s next wave of AI capacity is not happening. Firmus, a data center operator backed by Nvidia, withdrew its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday and said it will raise privately instead.

The Firmus IPO would have been the fourth largest public offering anywhere this year, according to Dealogic, and the second largest in ASX history. It did not fail on price. It failed on delivered capacity.

Orders started coming out on Wednesday, the day after the offer opened. The trigger was not a rate move or a valuation reset. It was CDC Data Centres chief executive Greg Boorer saying on a podcast that the two companies would not build their shared 1.6 gigawatt plan together.

The offer was priced on capacity that was not energised

Firmus and CDC announced the buildout in October 2025 with up to AU$73.3 billion attached. What reached production was 42 megawatts at one site, about 2.5 percent of the headline number. We walked through that gap when the partnership ended earlier this month.

Firmus had told investors it was raising about $5 billion on the strength of that pipeline and its contracts in Indonesia and Malaysia. When the delivery partner stepped back, the base case shifted underneath the offer documents. Cutting the share price would not have repaired it, so the company pulled the deal rather than reprice it.

Ask what is energised, not what is announced

Firmus now raises privately and points at a Nasdaq listing later. Its own sites in Tasmania and South Australia sit outside the CDC agreement, so the capacity story is not dead. It is just no longer priced for a public float.

For anyone buying AI capacity, the lesson is narrow. A multibillion dollar float is not evidence that the power is on. Ask how many megawatts are energised today, who delivers them, and what your contract says if that partner walks.

Related reading. Firmus announced 1.6 gigawatts and handed over 42 megawatts, and the short Bite on the same delivery gap.