Britishvolt Owner’s Offices Raided by Police

 The possibility of a new battery manufacturing in Northumberland has been dashed after Australian authorities searched the buyer of Britishvolt.

In connection with an alleged tax scam, investigators visited the offices of Scale Facilitation and SaniteX, two businesses owned by Australian businessman David Collard.

Britishvolt was acquired this year by Recharge Industries, a division of Scale Facilitation after it went under.

However, it still needs to pay for a potential industrial location close to the Port of Blyth.

According to sources close to Mr. Collard, a former partner at the accounting behemoth PwC, the tax raid resulted from a miscalculation on how Australian and US tax files interacted, and all parties were cooperating.

Scale Facilitation, an investment fund with offices in Australia and New York, is the ultimate owner and manager of Recharge Industries.

Despite the public support of politicians, including former prime minister Boris Johnson, Britishvolt’s assets were purchased by Recharge Industries after it entered administration.

An estimated 3,000 skilled jobs would have been created by Britishvolt’s £4 billion plant in Cambois, Northumberland, which would produce batteries for electric vehicles.

The business, however, found it difficult to turn a profit and eventually ran out of cash in January.

Recharge Industries now has a much longer period than originally scheduled (March 31) to complete and pay for the purchase of the Northumberland site.

Recharge insiders revealed that Australian employees had not received their salary for almost two weeks, but they assured that payments had since been issued.

They claimed the business was still sure it could find the money to finish buying the land close to Blyth in the following two to four weeks.

According to the BBC, the founders of Recharge are still optimistic that an agreement to construct the £4 billion website may go through.

Recharge is anticipated to hold a minority stake in the newly formed North East Gigafactory Development LLP, which will be owned by well-known and wealthy investors Tritax and Abrdn.

Instead of first developing batteries for electric vehicles, Recharge intended to focus on developing battery storage technologies.

According to someone with knowledge of the issue, government enthusiasm for the initiative has waned.

However, the aspirations for a quick start on a facility that was supposed to create thousands of employees in the North East have been put on wait once more.

Britishvolt owed up to £160mn to creditors when it collapsed

According to recently published records, Britishvolt started planning for potential insolvency as early as last summer. The battery start-up failed in January and left up to £160 million in debt to unsecured creditors.

The administration process is projected to cost EY £3.5 million in fees, according to the Big Four firm, which advised the battery group on its business strategy. This amount is likely to increase questions about the firm’s dual participation. Britishvolt, which had been stumbling between emergency financing rounds for months, folded in January and was sold to Australia’s Recharge Industries for just £8.6 million.

Since its efforts to fund £800 million last year failed, the UK’s hope for a national battery champion has racked up enormous debts, according to records made public by EY. Britishvolt brought in a team from EY in August to perform “liquidity analysis and high-level contingency planning work to understand its potential restructuring and insolvency options as a fallback plan,” according to the documents.

A month later, it officially began looking for a rescue buyer. After becoming bogged down in a never-ending search for emergency cash, it finally gave in to financial pressure in January. It failed with debts of between £130 million and £160 million, close to the £167.5 million in the capital it had raised in equity since its founding in 2019...........Read More

Source: Atlwire