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Australian battery company signals plans to bid Britishvolt

An Australian battery company has made a preliminary bid for the collapsed UK battery maker Britishvolt as it seeks to capitalize on the closer relationship established between Australia and the UK over the past year. to rescue businesses.

David Collard, founder of Recharge Industries, told the Financial Times that he would visit brother in Northumberland this week and met with UK government officials before making the formal offer.

Collard said England free trade agreement with Australia and the security alliance Aukus should reinforce the benefits of combining Britishvolt with his company’s current plans to build a battery factory in Geelong, a coastal city in Australia, by 2024 .

“We’re the one bottom line that brings it all together,” he said, adding that Recharge already has the backing of Jefferies and another international bank.

The collapse of Britishvolt this month has dashed the UK’s hopes of cherishing a world-leading global battery maker. The business, once valued at £700m, is expected to attract bids under £10m.

Collard against dozens potential contractor for the site, including Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors and DeaLab, a London-based financial group with close links to Indonesia.

The administrators expect to sell the rest of the business — including its website in Blyth and its 26 technical staff — by the end of the month.

The UK government provided £100 million in funding to Britishvolt before it collapsed, on the condition that it must begin construction work at the site in Blyth, Northumberland to unlock the funds. Collard said Recharge wants to secure that money if it takes over.

Recharge is launched in 2021 by Scale Facilitation, a New York-based investment vehicle, former PwC partner Collard has backed a number of startups in the green energy and health tech sectors.

Collard says he was approached by Britishvolt six months ago, when the British company was looking for financing options, but then focused on the Geelong location.

He said the company’s strategy had fundamental weaknesses in its business model, including its decision to focus solely on batteries for the electric vehicle market rather than diversifying its energy infrastructure.

He added that Britishvolt had burned through too much cash building its own intellectual property for the new battery technology and stoked outside expectations about its potential. “It was a difficult process to start over,” he said.

Collard says Recharge will likely move lithium-ion battery technology being used at the Geelong plant to Blyth to speed up the revival of the UK site.

That means switching the technology to lithium-based batteries, rather than cobalt and nickel as planned, but Collard says that will allow Recharge to achieve scale efficiency by building both plants together. a time.

He said that Recharge’s existing global chain of 230 suppliers could be linked to the UK business to speed up the launch process.

The 38-year-old Australian warns that there is a risk that Britishvolt will be acquired by a Chinese company looking to strengthen its hold in the global battery market.

Instead, he said an Anglo-Australian business would provide an opportunity to forge closer advanced manufacturing ties between the two countries.

Collard said of Britishvolt’s proposal: “We’re not here to jump in and jump out.



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