Firmus seeks A$43.7 billion valuation in landmark Australian IPO

Firmus Technologies wants Australian investors to put a A$43.7 billion price tag on its AI data centres. That is a big ask for a company founded in 2019 that still expects to post a loss.

The AI infrastructure operator has set its IPO share price at A$11 and aims to raise up to A$7.1 billion, or about US$5 billion, on the ASX. The listing is slated for around October 22–23, 2026. If it gets done, it would be the second-largest IPO in Australian history, behind only Telstra’s 1997 debut.

The numbers behind the pitch

The headline equity valuation is approximately A$43.7 billion. The enterprise value sits at around A$60 billion once you add roughly A$30 billion in debt.

Firmus anticipates a A$77 million loss in the first half of its fiscal year ahead of the IPO.

Projected earnings from its sites could reach about US$5 billion annually within five years, once those centres are fully operational.

What Firmus actually does

Firmus builds and runs what it calls AI “factories.” These are advanced data centres powered mainly by Nvidia GPUs, the chips that train and run modern AI models.

The company already operates in Australia and Singapore. It is developing additional sites across Indonesia and is eyeing a move into Malaysia.

Its customer list does a lot of the heavy lifting in the sales pitch. Meta and OpenAI are among its major customers.

The backers are equally recognizable. Nvidia, Blackstone, Coatue and Jane Street have all put money behind Firmus.

What this means for investors

Concerns have already emerged about the company’s growth assumptions, particularly the execution risk tied to facilities that do not yet exist.

The debt load raises the stakes. With about A$30 billion in borrowings factored into the enterprise value, the margin for error narrows.

Customer concentration is another factor to watch. Having Meta and OpenAI as major customers means a meaningful share of the story depends on how those companies continue to spend on compute.

The things to watch in the run-up to the late October listing are demand for the shares at A$11, whether the full A$7.1 billion raise is achieved, and any fresh detail on construction timelines for unbuilt sites.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.