An Australian company that recently bought Britishvolt, a British battery maker, has failed to pay UK staff for four months, according to reports from the BBC. The ailing Britishvolt entered administration at the beginning of this year and Recharge Industries took over in January after securing approval from EY, which was overseeing the sale of Britishvolt’s assets. Recharge agreed to pay £8.57m, of which £6.1m was paid on initial completion of the acquisition. The remainder, however, is still outstanding.
Recharge Industries plans to build vehicle batteries for the Australian military at the site of an old power station near Blyth in Northumberland. But it has yet to pay £2.5m for the purchase of Britishvolt, and sources say the company is facing difficulties raising an additional £11m to settle with property investor Katch, which has a financial claim on the site. Employees of the company have been unable to log into computer systems since an IT contractor has not been paid. “We’ve heard this time and time again since August”, an employee said.
Despite the difficulties, sources within Recharge Industries are optimistic that a deal with a new investor is imminent, and that the deal will be finalised by the middle of next week. The company needs to raise funds to discharge its obligations and gain control of the land. But Britishvolt workers sound sceptical of these claims. A lack of investment has also added to Recharge’s woes after the Australian federal police raided the offices of Scale Facilitation, the New York-based investment firm that owns Recharge, in June as part of a tax investigation. At the time, sources close to company leader David Collard said it was a misunderstanding of the interaction between US and Australian tax filings involving Mr Collard, a former partner at accountancy company PwC, and that all parties were co-operating
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More