Britishvolt owed creditors £160m when it collapsed

As part of this, it was revealed that the firm had begun planning for a possible insolvency as early as last summer, with the newly released documents also showing the battery start-up owed up to £160m unsecured creditors when it collapsed at the start of this year.  

Prior to this management had planned to raise £800m of equity in 2022 – with a further £1.7bn to follow in subsequent years to fund its capital expenditure requirements. However, a number of funding targets were missed, meaning fundraising activities had only resulted in £167.5m of equity investment being received.  

In September last year, the business began speaking to EY relating to obtaining additional equity investment, with a parallel accelerated sale process for a controlling interest in the company being run. 

By January, the company progressed discussions with a small number of interested parties – which ultimately resulted in a party putting forward a proposed offer to acquire 95% of the shares of the company. However, it was unable to obtain certain stakeholder approvals required to proceed with this offer and was subsequently placed into administration.  

Following the appointment of its administrators, an accelerated sales process was pursued resulting in interaction with 88 interested parties, including some which had previously expressed an interest in funding or

acquiring the company – as well as other UK and global parties connected to the sector.  

Following a review process, at the start of February the administrators decided to proceed with the offer from Recharge, entering a preferred bidder arrangement with the purchaser on 5 February – with the deal completed 21 days later.