Firmus cancels October listing after investors baulk at $44bn valuation
Oliver Curtis’s AI infrastructure company Firmus has cancelled plans for an October stock market listing after its expected valuation fell by billions of dollars. The company had been targeting a $44 billion valuation, but the proposed terms reportedly met resistance from investors who considered the price too high; the decision leaves Firmus seeking private funding instead.
Firmus planned to raise $7.9 billion through the float, with shares priced at $11, and had attracted backing from major US investors including Nvidia and Blackstone. It aims to build large data centres in Australia and Asia, but has so far developed smaller facilities and has yet to demonstrate it can deliver the planned scale. The company also faced scrutiny over Curtis’s 2016 conviction for conspiring to commit insider trading, for which he served 12 months in prison.
- Firmus has scrapped its planned ASX listing.
- Its proposed valuation was $44 billion.
- The company will seek private investment for expansion.
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Firmus is an Australian artificial intelligence infrastructure company founded by Oliver Curtis. The company builds data centres—massive facilities that house computers and store data—which are increasingly in demand as AI technology expands globally.
Firmus was planning to list on the stock market this month to raise $7.9 billion, which would have valued the company at $44 billion. However, major investors considered this valuation too high for a company that has only built smaller facilities so far and has yet to prove it can deliver the large-scale data centres it has promised.
Data centre infrastructure has become increasingly valuable as artificial intelligence capabilities expand, with both established technology companies and new ventures competing for market share. The company has substantial backing from major US investors including Nvidia and Blackstone. Founder Curtis was convicted of insider trading in 2016 and served 12 months in prison, a matter that has drawn scrutiny to the venture.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
The AI infrastructure sector is experiencing unprecedented demand as companies race to build data centre capacity in Asia-Pacific, and Firmus carries credibility from major investors like Nvidia and Blackstone who understand this market intimately. The company's strategy to establish regional data centre hubs ahead of competitors could justify a premium valuation, as first-mover advantages in underserved markets carry genuine strategic value. Whilst Curtis's 2016 conviction merits transparency, it occurred a decade ago and penalising current operations entirely for past mistakes by a leader who served his sentence may reflect excessive caution rather than balanced risk assessment.
The case against
Firmus faces a credibility gap between its stated ambitions and demonstrated capabilities; building large-scale data centre networks requires proven operational excellence, and the company has only delivered smaller facilities to date. Investors demanding a $44 billion valuation whilst the company remains largely a project pipeline rather than an operating enterprise represents substantial execution risk that the market is appropriately pricing in. Curtis's insider trading conviction adds legitimate governance concerns for institutional investors deploying billions; the history matters not as permanent disqualification but as genuine due diligence consideration when assessing whether leadership merits such exceptional trust and capital allocation.
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Originally published by Daily Mail as “Roxy Jacenko’s billionaire husband Oliver Curtis scraps ASX float of his AI company after multi-billion-dollar valuation blow”.