Bankrupt battery factory Northvolt will cease operating by the end of June, according to the company’s appointed bankruptcy trustee.
On Wednesday evening, Swedish Radio Ekot reported Northvolt — once considered among Europe’s most valuable startups — was about to lose its biggest and last remaining customer, truck-maker Scania.
Responding to a request for comment from Sifted, Northvolt’s bankruptcy trustee Mikael Kubu said the company is now winding down the operations at its factory in Skelleftå.
“The bankruptcy estate has been able to continue battery cell production with a limited number of employees, supported by the existing customer,” says Kubu in a statement.
“However, this arrangement is not sustainable in the long term for a single stakeholder, nor for the bankruptcy estate itself. Consequently, a gradual wind-down of battery cell production in Northvolt Ett will be initiated, with the objective of ceasing production by 30 June.”
The Swedish startup has continued production in Skellefteå as it has been trying to find a buyer. According to Kubu, that search will continue.
Northvolt has been able to maintain operations even after filing for bankruptcy, thanks to Scania. But Scania has reportedly planned to stop buying batteries from Northvolt for financial reasons.
As a Northvolt shareholder, Scania had committed an additional $100m to Northvolt as the company entered a Chapter 11 bankruptcy procedure in the US, and continue to buy batteries from the company. According to Ekot, it has even paid more for them than before Northvolt’s collapse.
Once considered a poster child among Europe’s most promising climate techs, Northvolt has battled to stay afloat. In March of this year, the battery-maker filed for bankruptcy in Sweden, bringing its long-running financial drama to a head.
The bankruptcy trustee Mikael Kubu has since tried to find a buyer for the factory and made large redundancies to keep the company afloat.
Around 900 people are still working at the factory after the bankruptcy. According to the bankruptcy trustee, a due diligence process is currently underway at the factory in Skellefteå.
However, at present, the bankruptcy estate does not foresee any realistic prospects for a purchaser to assume control of the production in the near term.
The communicated plan between Scania and the battery manufacturer has been for production to continue until the end of May.
Leading up to its bankruptcy, Northvolt sold its industrial battery division to Scania in February.
The division, Systems Industrial, specialises in battery systems for heavy industry. It employs around 300 people at an R&D facility in Stockholm, Sweden, and at Northvolt’s production facility in Gdańsk, Poland.
The article was updated with comments from the bankruptcy trustee on Thursday afternoon.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/northvolt-may-lose-last-customer/
