Australian company Recharge Industries preferred bidder for Britishvolt

Administrators have selected Australian EV battery company Recharge Industries as the preferred bidder to acquire Britishvolt.

If the deal completes, Recharge Industries and its owner Scale Facilitation Partners would obtain “the majority of the business and assets” according to Britishvolt’s administrator EY.

Britishvolt had planned to build a gigafactory in Blyth, Northumberland, that would produce enough batteries for over 300,000 electric vehicles each year. The £3.8bn project was set to create 3,000 direct highly-skilled jobs and another 5,000 indirect jobs in the wider supply chain.

David Collard, founder, Recharge Industries, said, “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.”

A statement from EY said, “This follows a process conducted by EY that involved the consideration of multiple approaches from interested parties and numerous offers received. Completion of the acquisition is expected to occur within the next seven days.”

Other bidders after Britishvolt were reported to have been its founder Orral Nadjari, Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors, and Greybull.

The Britishvolt gigafactory would become the third proposed site for Recharge Industries along with a lithium-ion battery cell production facility in Victoria, Australia and the US.

Founded in 2022, Recharge Industries is a wholly-owned subsidiary of New York investment firm Scale Facilitation Partners.