Data center firm Firmus said to seek $5 billion in Australia IPO

Firmus Technologies Pty is looking to raise as much as $5 billion in an initial public offering in Australia, according to people familiar with the matter.

The data center provider is targeting a listing at the end of October, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Deliberations are ongoing and details of the offering, including its size and timing, could change, the people said.

A representative for Firmus declined to comment.


The deal is shaping up to be as one of the largest-ever IPOs 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 each of the previous two years.

Firmus would be joining in a wave massive fundraising by firms along the artificial intelligence 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 and China’s Moonshot AI, which is looking to raise $5 billion in a Hong Kong IPO, people familiar with the matter have said.

The Australian firm has inked a number of contracts with major US technology firms in the lead-up to its listing, including an agreement to provide OpenAI with computing power out of two data center sites in Malaysia. It also got $2 billion in commitments from a group including Jane Street and Nvidia Corp. in August.

The AFR reported on the potential size of the offering earlier.