Firmus Pulls $5 Billion Float in Blow to Australia's Shrinking Share Market
Nvidia-backed data centre operator Firmus announced on 9 October 2026 that it was pulling its roughly $5 billion initial public offering. Reuters reported the company cited market volatility and conditions and said it would pursue a private fundraising round instead. Only four days earlier, Firmus had disclosed pricing and bookbuild arrangements for what was set to be Australia's most closely watched listing of the year.
At $5 billion, the offering would have ranked as the fourth-largest IPO globally so far this year and the second-largest in Australian Securities Exchange history, behind only Telstra's 1997 flotation. Investors said the withdrawal is a setback for a market already facing a shrinking pool of listed companies after several major privatisations and a weak pipeline of new listings.
Oscar Oberg, lead portfolio manager at Wilson Asset Management, an early Firmus investor, said the outcome was really bad for the market, adding that the lack of IPOs had been frustrating for a very long time and that a substantial new technology listing would have given investors more choice.
LSEG data show new share sales in Australia totalled $1.37 billion in the first nine months of 2026, the most since 2021 but well below rival exchanges. With Firmus turning to private markets, attention will remain on its valuation and funding progress, and on the ASX's ability to attract large growth companies.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图片来源：Klauskazamias / Wikimedia Commons（CC0）
