Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (HSF Kramer) has advised Firmus Grid on its pre-IPO A$330 million equity raising. Morgans was Lead Manager for the raising. With cornerstone investments from Ellerston Capital and NVIDIA, the raise values the business at AUD$1.85 billion and one of the largest equity capital raisings in the Australian market for 2025.
Firmus is an Australian company that is a world leader in integrated, ‘liquid-everywhere’ AI factories and the provision of GPU-as-a-Service to global hyperscalers and other major customers. The new capital will fund the development of a renewable powered AI factory campus in Tasmania.
The HSF Kramer team was led by partner, Stephen Dobbs, supported by solicitors James Newton & Elle Henriksen and solicitor Melissa Chung.
Stephen Dobbs said, “It was fantastic to work with the Firmus team again and to play a part in the continuing growth of this dynamic Australian company. It is a rapidly evolving sector and Firmus is at the forefront.”
Ben Webb, General Counsel for Firmus Grid, said: “It’s been fantastic working with the HSF Kramer team on our pre-IPO raise. Their market leading expertise and guidance has been greatly appreciated.”
This deal is another example of HSF Kramer’s market-leading work in Australian equity raisings in the digital infrastructure and emerging tech sectors. Other recent examples include:
- PsiQuantum on the $1 billion Australian Government investment in its project to build the world’s first utility-scale quantum computer in Brisbane, Australia.
- NEXTDC on a range of strategic and operational matters, including its highly successful A$1.32 billion accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer in 2024.
- Consortium of private capital investors on their bid as part of the auction process for Airtrunk.
- HMC Capital on the A$2.75 billion IPO of DigiCo Infrastructure REIT. This was Australia’s largest IPO in 2024.
- ANZ on the D&C contract for the Tullamarine and Mt Waverley Data Centres.
- HRL Morrison & Co in relation to its A$350 million proposed majority acquisition via Infratil Limited (NZX/ASX:IFT) from a leading telecommunication company, HKT Limited, of its global network connection and NaaS business, Console Connect.
- AustralianSuper on its $2.5 billion deal with DigitalBridge Group to acquire a significant minority stake in Vantage Data centres EMEA.
- Kmart in respect of a competitive tender process for a major digital infrastructure transformation project.
- DigitalBridge on its investment into Edge Data Centres Pty Ltd.