Firmus co-founder Oliver Curtis has described the collapse of the Australian technology company’s proposed $44 billion stock market float as a “missed opportunity” for the country, while insisting the business will continue and seeking fresh backing in Asia.
The planned initial public offering was abandoned last Friday, just days before Firmus had been due to make what would have been Australia’s second-largest market debut after Telstra.
Speaking in Singapore, Curtis said Australia’s “dim views” of people willing to take risks were encouraging start-ups to move overseas. He said Firmus should have become “a home-grown hero” manufacturing technology and pursuing opportunities globally.
“Ultimately [Firmus] should be a home-grown hero, manufacturing amazing technology with an amazing pipeline of opportunity … and it is disappointing that Australia decided there was a mantra of disbelief,” he said.
“It’s another chapter, and we will ensure that we live on as a business. Nothing changes. Watch this space.”
Firmus seeks fresh funding after IPO collapse
Firmus had planned to offer shares at $11 each, giving the company a proposed valuation of $44 billion. It had hoped to raise a further $7.9 billion before its scheduled October 23 listing.
The company has received backing from major US investors, including chipmaker Nvidia and investment firm Blackstone. Curtis has now reportedly travelled to Asia in search of new investors and is targeting wealthy private backers in Australia and the region, with the company seeking an additional US$3 billion.
The proposed listing had been presented as a major Australian technology success. Curtis said he hoped the company would ultimately be viewed as “a global Australian tech success story”, but warned that entrepreneurs and businesses could instead leave the country to find funding and establish headquarters elsewhere.
“What has happened over the last 48 hours makes no difference to my company. Time will tell,” he said.
Firmus’s plans involve developing large data centres equipped with powerful computer chips across Australia and Asia. However, only smaller AI computing facilities have so far been developed, prompting concern among investors that the company had not yet demonstrated it could build and operate the much larger sites envisaged.
The proposed valuation was also criticised as too ambitious. Michael Farzis, an investment fund manager who declined to take part in the IPO, said the initial pricing had been “very aggressive”.
“I think they reached too high and I think they were way too aggressive in their valuation expectations, which ran way ahead of what they’d been able to execute,” he said.
Farzis said more modest expectations might have improved Firmus’s chances of completing the listing. He also questioned whether the failed flotation could affect confidence in the wider global AI market, given the scale of the planned offering.
Curtis rejected a suggestion that he had misled investors by saying in a broker message that indications were “well in excess of the offer price”. He described the suggestion as “disgraceful”.
“We’re in a perfectly good position. There’s no fire sale; people can dance on my grave,” he said.
Curtis, who served 12 months of a two-year prison sentence after being convicted of insider trading in 2016, said he hoped Firmus would be judged on its delivery in the months ahead.
“Hopefully we can be looked at in 12 months’ time (or even) six or three months’ time (and be) delivering exactly what we said we would be delivering,” he said.
