Britishvolt Ltd’s administrator selected Australian startup Recharge Industries as the preferred bidder to acquire the majority of the insolvent UK battery firm’s business and assets.
(Bloomberg) — Britishvolt Ltd’s administrator selected Australian startup Recharge Industries as the preferred bidder to acquire the majority of the insolvent UK battery firm’s business and assets.
The acquisition is expected to take place within the next seven days, according to a statement Monday by EY, Britishvolt’s administrator. Recharge Industries is a subsidiary of Scale Facilitation Partners LLC.
Once considered the UK’s best shot for a homegrown electric-vehicle battery supplier, Britishvolt went into bankruptcy last month after failing to identify any potential rescuers. The company had grand plans for an enormous £3.8 billion ($4.7 billion) plant in northern England that it said would create around 3,000 jobs.
Recharge industries, founded in 2021, is currently building a battery factory in Geelong, near Melbourne in Australia. The company plans to make batteries used to store energy generated from renewable sources as well as those for electric vehicles, said David Collard, the founder and managing partner of Scale Facilitation.
“We’re thrilled to be progressing with our proposed bid for Britishvolt and can’t wait to get started making a reality of our plans to build the UK’s first gigafactory,” said Collard, in a statement Monday.
The decision “follows a process conducted by EY that involved the consideration of multiple approaches from interested parties and numerous offers received,” EY said.
Recharge Industries had submitted one of the two bids received for Britishvolt by the time the deadline for proposals had ended last week, people familiar with the matter said at the time. The other bid came from a consortium of former Britishvolt investors.
The Australian company didn’t specify how it plans to fund the construction of the UK factory, although Collard said that he had received commitment letters from a number of funders.
In addition to battery research and production via Recharge Industries, Scale Facilitation also invests in medical technology and artificial intelligence.
(Updates with comment from Recharge Industries CEO in fifth paragraph.)
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