Fermi America seeks IPO to fund energy, data centre
Fermi America, co-founded by former Texas governor Rick Perry, filed on Monday to list a real estate investment trust on Nasdaq, to fund the building of an energy and data centre facility in Texas.
UBS, Cantor Fitzgerald and Mizuho are joint bookrunners on the all-primary deal. The company plans to list on Nasdaq and seek a second listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Fermi said proceeds from the IPO will be used to build a multi-gigawatt energy and data centre development campus on a 5,263-acre site at Texas Tech University in Amarillo, Texas.
Named Project Matador, the facility is expected to deliver up to 11 gigawatts of low-carbon power to support the needs of data centres, with one gigawatt projected to be online by the end of 2026.
Fermi, in turn, will generate “predictable, stable, long-term revenue through lease agreements with our hyperscaler tenants structured around available power capacity”.
Fermi has already entered into a 99-year ground lease on the site, which may simultaneously house four largest data centre campuses.
Set up at the beginning of the year, Fermi has issued US$246.6m worth of convertible notes to fund initial development and the purchase of equipment, including US$145m in preferred unit financing that bears an annual interest of 11%.
For the six months since its inception, the company recorded US$6.4m in net losses and US$40m in cash.