The corporate regulator is investigating the aborted initial public offering of data centre start-up Firmus, including whether information provided to potential investors during the marketing and bookbuild was accurate and properly supported.
"ASIC is aware of questions raised about whether information provided to institutional and wholesale investors during the marketing and bookbuild process was accurate, appropriately qualified and supported by a reasonable basis at the time it was provided," ASIC chair Sarah Court wrote in a letter to senator Dave Sharma.
Court told a Senate estimates hearing the inquiries are targeted and preliminary, and she warned against drawing adverse inferences while inquiries continue. She also said the regulator was not treating Firmus’ withdrawal of the IPO as evidence of failure in Australia’s capital markets or its regulatory framework.
The planned listing would have been the biggest on the Australian Securities Exchange since Telstra in 1997. Joint lead managers Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Morgans Financial had been seeking to raise about $US5.5 billion, valuing Firmus at about $44 billion.
Firmus had outlined an expansion program to build data centres across Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and projected it would sell services to large tech customers such as Meta and OpenAI. The company currently operates two data centres and reported most recent annual revenue of $50 million.
Some potential investors became wary as the IPO progressed, citing the risk of existing shareholders selling into the market soon after listing. That potential overhang, together with what some described as aggressive pricing, contributed to a cooling of demand during the bookbuild.
Firmus was co-founded by Oliver Curtis, with co-founders Tim Rosenfield and Jonathan Levee and Curtis’s father Nick Curtis among major shareholders. The founders stood to hold shares worth more than $10 billion if the listing had proceeded at the planned valuation. Oliver Curtis previously served one year in prison in 2016-17 for insider trading.
The company had reported commitments totalling $US2 billion from investors that included Nvidia and Blackstone. High-profile Australian backers named in disclosures included James Packer, former federal treasurer Joe Hockey and investor Alex Waislitz, alongside fund managers Ellerston Capital and Regal Partners.
Senator Dave Sharma urged action and said ASIC’s inquiries were important to market trust. He described the regulator’s scrutiny as reassuring and said any response needed to be visible to maintain confidence in the capital markets.
Firmus has announced it will now pursue capital from private markets and consider other public and private options. ASIC said it will consider the information obtained through its inquiries and determine whether any further action is warranted.
