Britishvolt ‘gigafactory’ gets a chance to survive with new owner

An Australian startup has become the new owner of Britishvolt after the electric vehicle battery company filed for bankruptcy last month.

Accounting firm EY has confirmed that it has selected Scale Facilitation Partners and its Australian subsidiary Recharge Industries as preferred bidders to buy out-of-control British start-up Britishvolt, which has been hit.

The company said it is “delighted” with the progress of the deal and “can’t wait to get started on our plans to build the UK’s first gigafactory”. The deal, which has yet to be fully disclosed, is expected to close within the next seven days, EY said in a statement.

The reload was reportedly chosen based on three competing proposals. Among them were the investor group Britishvolt and one of the private equity group Greybull Capital. The fourth application was submitted by a Saudi British bank, a retail bank partially backed by HSBC. financial times.

Britishvolt, which planned to build a £3.8bn plant at Blyth in Northumberland, went bust two weeks ago after the battery startup ran out of cash, forcing it to lay off almost all of its remaining 200 employees.

This struggled to raise money and stay afloat for a large electric car battery factory in northern England.Just months after Boris Johnson hailed his plans for a massive EV battery plant in the Northeast as a major “alignment” and post-Brexit opportunity.

The collapse has seriously undermined the prospects of a major British manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles. Market leaders and battery experts say domestic EV battery factories are needed to prevent the shift of car production from the UK to mainland Europe.

Britishvolt first announced its plans for the Northumberland site – the former coal yards of the old Blyth power station – in 2020, saying it would create 3,000 jobs directly and another 5,000 in the supply chain.

EY’s restructuring arm EY-Parthenon was appointed trustee of Britishvolt in January after the company struggled to raise money and stay afloat for a major electric vehicle battery plant in northern England.

Britishvolt is in talks with a consortium of investors to sell a majority stake in the company, without disclosing details.

The government of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has touted the Britishvolt project as a key milestone in building the electric car industry as the UK moves towards a ban on combustion vehicles by 2030.

But last summer, Britishvolt said it had only raised around £200m and pushed back the production schedule, citing “harsh external economic headwinds”.

While Britishvolt is small, industry experts consider the Blyth site to be the UK’s best go-live site for a battery plant with an abundance of renewable energy available.

Recharge was launched in 2021 by Scale Facilitation, a New York-based investment company that has backed several medical technology and clean energy startups. Recharge has already announced proposals to build a battery factory in Geelong, Australia.

The company said its A$300m (£172m) lithium-ion battery plant is unwilling to use Chinese-made materials. Recharge has announced that construction at the Victoria plant will begin in the second half of this year, with production scheduled to begin in late 2024.