For the Swedish electric battery giant, which had hoped to become a European leader capable of competing with the Chinese and the Americans, but which had suffered setbacks in recent months, seeing its debts grow without being able to find new financing, it had nothing to offer. do. There is only one alternative: on Thursday, November 21, late in the afternoon, Northvolt, which has very limited activity in the United States, announced, in a press release, that it had filed for Chapter 11 US bankruptcy. law, to restructure itself sheltered from the demands of its creditors.
“This decisive step will allow Northvolt to continue its mission of establishing a European industrial base for battery production”, says Tom Johnstone, interim chairman of the company’s board of directors. In the press release, the company specifies that the American procedure will authorize it to “restructure your debt”while “adapting its activity to the current needs of its clients” and in “ensure a sustainable basis for the continuation of its activities”.
“The company will continue to deliver to its customers, fulfill its obligations to its main suppliers and pay the salaries of its employees”the press release states, highlighting that neither of the two gigafactory projects in Germany and Canada are affected by the procedure.
Within the framework of this procedure provided for by US legislation, Northvolt will have access to a set of guarantees worth 145 million dollars, or the equivalent of 1.6 billion Swedish crowns. In addition, Swedish road transport giant Scania, one of the group’s current customers, agreed to pay the equivalent of SEK 1.1 billion in loans. “We are doing this to support production in Skelleftea. [la giga-usine au nord de la Suède] »explained Erik Bratthall, Scania spokesperson, to the business daily Dagens Industry.
Expensive expansion strategy
On November 6, the company’s CEO, Peter Carlsson, estimated that Northvolt would need 10 billion crowns to be able to keep its activities afloat in 2025. Since its creation in 2016, the small start-up, which has become a company that employs 6,000 employees worldwide, managed to raise 13.8 billion euros, in particular from the manufacturers Volkswagen (its main shareholder), BMW, Scania and Volvo.
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