Oliver Curtis, the husband of socialite publicist Roxy Jacenko, has abandoned plans to list his artificial intelligence company Firmus after the business’s projected valuation fell by billions of dollars.
Firmus is developing large-scale data centres packed with advanced computer chips designed to train AI models and support applications such as ChatGPT.
The company had been preparing for what would have been Australia’s second-largest stock market debut after Telstra. Its shares were to be priced at $11, implying a total valuation of $44 billion.
However, the proposed October 23 listing was withdrawn after concerns that Curtis was seeking an overly ambitious price and asking investors to value the company well above what they considered reasonable.
A New York hedge fund also questioned Curtis’s past insider-trading conviction and declined to participate in the proposed float.
“Having considered recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions, the board determined that the terms on which the offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the strength of the company’s business and long-term growth outlook,” Firmus said.
“The board therefore concluded that proceeding with the offer was not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.”
Firmus will instead pursue new funding from wealthy private investors as it seeks to finance a network of AI data centres across Australia and Asia.
Oliver Curtis pictured with his wife, Roxy Jacenko
Firmus Technologies runs a data centre site at St Leonards, near Launceston in Tasmania
Curtis’s AI venture began taking shape after his release from prison, pictured leaving Cooma Correctional Centre in June 2017
The business has already secured billions of dollars from prominent US backers, including chipmaker Nvidia and investment giant Blackstone.
Firmus had been seeking an additional $7.9 billion by Thursday, ahead of the planned October 23 ASX debut.
Yet the company’s operations remain at an early stage. It has built smaller AI computing facilities but has not demonstrated that it can deliver and run the vast data centres planned for Australia and Asia.
The failed listing comes only months after Curtis reflected on the ninth anniversary of his release from prison.
Curtis was released on parole from Cooma Correctional Centre after serving 12 months of a two-year sentence for conspiring to commit insider trading.
He was convicted in June 2016 over a conspiracy involving the use of confidential information to carry out insider trading.
“20 years ago, I was a young man, a very young man, for that matter,” Curtis told Rampart’s Joe Aston this year.
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“I was silly, I was stupid, and I made a mistake … If I had my time again, of course I’d do different things, naturally.”
Curtis founded Firmus Technologies in 2019. The company is headquartered in Singapore, where he spends part of the year with Jacenko and their teenage children
He was found guilty over confidential tip-offs provided by his old school friend John Joseph Hartman.
Hartman was an equities dealer at Orion Asset Management, which managed billions of dollars of investments.
Because of his job, Hartman knew in advance when Orion was planning to buy or sell large amounts of particular shares – and those trades could move the market price.
The court found that Hartman provided Curtis with confidential information about Orion Asset Management’s trading intentions on 45 occasions between May 25, 2007 and June 11, 2008.
Curtis used the tip-offs to make trades before Orion carried out its planned trades.
He was 30 when he was convicted, but the sentencing judge said he was just 21 when he committed the offence.
The duo had been best mates at Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview, the elite private Jesuit boarding school on Sydney’s lower north shore.
Before they were convicted, the pair drank at city bars and made a total of $1.4million from the illegal trades, splashing the proceeds on luxury items and trips.
Hartman, son of the obstetrician to the Packer and Murdoch families, and Curtis, the son of the executive chairman of rare earth miner Lynas, were living together in a $3,000-a-week Bondi apartment at the time.
Hartman bought a $60,000 Mini Cooper and a $20,000 Ducati motorcycle. They took their friends on holidays to gamble in Las Vegas casinos, and paid for strippers at Cirque du Soleil.
They took a helijet from Vancouver to ski in Whistler, Canada because they would be ‘too hungover to drive’.
Even before things came to a head, the old school mates had begun to fall out with one another over money to support their lifestyle and Curtis’ gambling habit.
In August 2008, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission began scrutinising Hartman’s stockbroking account after it detected illegal trading.
On January 13, 2009, Hartman’s broker froze the $2.6m account, making Hartman believe he had been caught red-handed.
Five days later, he rang his father, moved out of the Bondi flat and quit his job. The following day, he confessed everything to ASIC investigators.
Hartman was jailed aged 25 in 2010 and served 15 months in prison, and Curtis’ case finally went to trial in 2016, before he was jailed in 2016.