Firmus and PLDT pulled their data center IPOs this week as governments in Asia-Pacific pressed pause on development, the latest hurdle to the region's data center boom.
Asia-Pacific's hectic data center rollout has hit a series of speed bumps. The most dramatic by far was the collapse on Friday of Australian-based Firmus's planned AU$7.1 billion (US$4.97 billion) IPO, which had been expected to be the biggest ASX debut since Telstra's 1997 IPO.
Firmus, a neocloud company whose shareholders include Blackstone, Jane Street and Nvidia, withdrew its ASX listing application on Friday and said it would seek up to $3 billion through private fund-raising, the Financial Times has reported. The company had struggled to win market support at its target price of around AU$11 ($7.67). Even after it offered to cut the price, investors did not have the appetite.
Trading in Maas Group, one of Firmus's shareholders, was halted on Friday after the stock dropped 27% in two days. Maas Group holds a 3.2% stake in the company and has outstanding contracts with Firmus worth AU$727 million ($507 million).
Two days earlier, Firmus had been dropped by CDC Data Centers from their joint AI infrastructure project in Australia. CDC had become troubled by Firmus's southeast Asian expansion, which had not been part of the original partnership.
**PLDT delays IPO to 2027**
Firmus was not the only IPO to falter this week. Philippine telco PLDT put its data center REIT listing on hold until 2027, blaming higher interest rates. The REIT, Vitro, was expected to raise as much as 24.2 billion Philippine pesos (US$385.1 million) on the Manila bourse.
PLDT said in an exchange filing that it had decided to delay the IPO until 2027 due to "current market conditions and rising interest rates." It said it remained committed to the IPO as an important part of its asset monetization and deleveraging plans.
The Philippines' central bank last month raised interest rates by 25 basis points and is widely expected to announce two more rate rises by the end of the year.
Southeast Asian governments have also been forced to press pause on the AI boom. Last week, Indonesia's West Java province halted a 640MW project by Singapore-based BDX, claiming the project had not received key approvals, including an environmental assessment.
A month ago, Thailand suspended 166 data center projects, of which 49 were under construction and 117 awaited approval. The suspension allows government committees to write new industry rules that would set standards and maximize the economic benefit to Thailand.
In Malaysia, the center of Asia's data center boom, officials are anxious about the new digital infrastructure's soaring power consumption. Electricity demand growth has risen from 1.5%-2% annually to nearly 10% due to data centers, according to Siti Safinah Salleh, head of the Malaysian Energy Commission. Salleh warned that recovering energy costs from data center operators is difficult because many are on short-term contracts and have refused to make long-term commitments.