In great financial difficulty, the battery manufacturer Northvolt announced early on Tuesday that it had filed for bankruptcy of the subsidiary which manages the development of its mega-factory in Skelleftea, in the north of Sweden.
The subsidiary managing the construction of Northvolt’s facilities near the Arctic Circle in Sweden – Northvolt Ett Expansion – “filed [ce mardi] a bankruptcy application to the Stockholm District Court,” the Swedish company confirmed in a press release.
The approach follows the suspension in September of the project to expand the facilities located in the north of the country, due to the company’s financial difficulties.
This subsidiary, which has no direct employees, is one of the twenty or so entities that form the constellation of companies belonging to Northvolt. The bankruptcy filing “only concerns the Northvolt subsidiary Ett Expansion AB,” assured Northvolt. All communications related to the subsidiary “will now be managed by the bankruptcy trustee,” said the Stockholm startup.
“Looking to the future, Northvolt Group is focusing its resources on accelerating large-scale cell production in the first fully built phase of Northvolt Ett and delivering on its commitments to its industry customers automobile,” the company specified.
Liquidity crisis
Plunged into a liquidity crisis which prevents it from supporting its current business model, Northvolt has not only slowed down the expansion of its Skellefteå complex in recent weeks.
The young company has decided to refocus its strategy on the production of battery cells, which has led it to pull the plug on a major project in Sweden in addition to laying off 1,600 people, or nearly a quarter of its global workforce.
In recent months, Northvolt has also persisted and signed its desire to build a seven billion battery cell mega-factory on the South Shore of Montreal.