Shares of Australia’s Maas Group entered a trading halt on Friday pending an announcement related to Nvidia-backed data centre operator Firmus, which has shelved its $5 billion initial public offering (IPO) plan due to market volatility and conditions, according to livemint.com. Maas had recently increased its stake in Firmus to 3.2% with an additional A$300 million investment.
Maas requested the trading halt as it awaited a material announcement regarding its contractual arrangements with Firmus. The halt is expected to be lifted once the company updates the market or by the start of trading on Monday. Earlier this month, Maas shares plunged more than 20% following reports that Firmus was reconsidering the terms of its planned listing, erasing about A$517 million from Maas’s market value.
Firmus, which counts OpenAI as its anchor customer, designs and operates modular AI factories using proprietary energy and cooling technology. The cancelled IPO would have been Australia’s second-largest on record but faced lukewarm investor demand, highlighting selective investor appetite amid current market conditions. Instead, Firmus announced it will pursue a private fundraising round.
Maas’s share price had fallen more than 30% from its record high earlier this month before the trading halt. The company’s next market update is anticipated by Monday, when trading is expected to resume, according to livemint.com.