Australian firm looks set to buy collapsed UK battery start-up Britishvolt 

The collapsed British battery start-up Britishvolt is set to be bought by an Australian firm. 

Recharge Industries has been named as the preferred bidder for Britishvolt and has entered an agreement to buy the company’s business and assets. 

Britishvolt went into administration after running out of money. 

It had planned to buy a giant factory to make electric car batteries in Blyth, Northumberland. 

EY, the accountancy firm and administrator to Britishvolt which has been overseeing the sale, said: “Completion of the acquisition is expected to occur within the next seven days.”

Recharge Industries is building a facility in Australia to produce batteries for electric vehicles.

There’s not much information as to what the Aussie firm plans for the Britishvolt business which had hoped to build a £3.8bn factory as part of a long-term strategy to boost the UK’s manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries. 

It had been hoped it would create 3,000 skilled jobs, but instead more than 200 people were out of work when the firm collapsed. 

David Collard, chief executive of Scale Facilitation and founder of Recharge Industries, said it “can’t wait to get started making a reality of our plans to build the UK’s first gigafactory”.

Recharge is building a battery-making factor in Geelong, Melbourne, which will start operating in 2024. 

Recharge reportedly beat out a number of others to become the preferred bidder, despite a lot of British companies bidding for it too.