Datacentre company Firmus’s high flying valuation may be coming back down to earth ahead of expected ASX debut

Firmus Technologies, an AI datacentre company, is reportedly slashing its valuation ahead of its anticipated ASX debut. According to sources briefed on the matter, the company is reducing its price to entice sceptical investors or may even shelve its initial public offering altogether.

The company's valuation had reached nearly $44bn, but this was considered fanciful by some investment managers, given that Firmus is still in its start-up phase and losing hundreds of millions of dollars. The company's backers had been confident of obtaining this valuation just days ago, but are now frantically re-pricing to find a level that investors will be comfortable paying.

Firmus abruptly withdrew from a parliamentary inquiry into artificial intelligence amid discussions to save its initial public offering, which was billed as the largest IPO in Australia in decades. The company had raised money from large investors, including chip maker Nvidia and Walmart.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Guardian, The Guardian Australia — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.