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Britishvolt: UK battery startup collapses into administration

29 points by edward 4y ago

lolpython 4y ago
For non-UK folks: "administration" is similar to bankruptcy in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(law)
- mattlondon 4y ago
  Is it more like Chapter 11?
  - neilwilson 4y ago
    No. It's for corporate bodies. When a company goes into administration, the company is dead, and the business is taken over by 'administrators' who run the business and sell it on or wind it up in an orderly fashion. The company is then closed down and any creditors of the company paid out of the remaining proceeds - after the administrators have taken their fee. Think of them as corporate undertakers.
  - AngusH 4y ago
    I think the closest US equivalent in this case is chapter 7 bankruptcy. If I've got it right chapter 11 is more a reorganzation and restructuring, while chapter 7 is disposing of the assets to pay off the creditors. This is the latter and UK administration process is usually a sell off of the assets, occasionally a company is sold as a going concern, but mostly it can't be and gets sold as parts.
dinkblam 4y ago
seems this will negatively impact British car makers like Aston Martin and Lotus who had partnerships with Britishvolt: https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/lotus-partners-with-britishvolt-on-new-ev-tech/45247 https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/lotus-partne... https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/aston-partners-with-britishvolt-on-new-batteries/45401 https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/aston-partne...
- coastermug 4y ago
  Reading the rather thin press on the relationship between Lotus and Britishvolt, it seems all Lotus signed was a “memorandum of understanding”.
kulor 4y ago
I wonder if they had adopted a leaner approach of starting with a smaller factory/factories and scaling up they could have avoided this. Multi £B deals that require a cold-start seem destined for failure.
- ilyt 4y ago
  I'd imagine going smaller would make their stuff even more uncompetitive price-wise
neilwilson 4y ago
Something very odd about this setup. Lots of marketing and PR - not a lot of construction or engineering. I'm sure the full story will emerge in time.
- blitzar 4y ago
  Looks like a bunch of grifters paying themselves big piles of money and delivering very little. Edit: And there it is ... shocker Britishvolt was founded by Lars Carlstrom, a Swedish automotive executive, and Orral Nadjari, a financier with connections in the Middle East. The former quit two years ago after revelations that he was a convicted tax fraudster. The latter quit this summer amid speculation that he was not up to the job of leading the business into commercialisation.
  - europeanguy 4y ago
    You can tell straight away it's a grift from the fact they went thru the trouble of creating a computer graphic of how their factory would look like. I mean, who cares what the factory looks like?
    - blitzar 4y ago
      You have to spend $2.4bn on something, might as well be fancy graphics, because it obviously wasnt a battery factory.
monkeydust 4y ago
https://archive.is/cR213 https://archive.is/cR213 - a Times piece from November. They tried to find a buyer and failed but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those interested pick up the pieces from Administration at a haircut of what they would have had to pay. "The company is understood to be down to its last £5 million. With a monthly wage bill of £2.5 million for the 300 executives and R&D engineers on its books, at an average salary of £100,000 a year, that is unlikely to get the business through Christmas"
ehvatum 4y ago
Reminds me of Chanje, the Chinese EV manufacturer that went bust. I bought one of their beluga-enormous white vans from Ryder for a song and it’s wonderful. Chanje scaled all the way up to million unit beluga-enormous EV van production on Chinese government incentives and then immediately went bankrupt when the incentives went away.
rekabis 4y ago
Strange how so many of these smart and skilled business owners fail to appropriately pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Isn’t that what they always tell “the poors” to do?
- prottog 4y ago
  What a strange response to this story.
coastermug 4y ago
What R&D and technical capabilities did this company have? It will be interesting to see if anything gets sold off in administration. In the media, I saw lots of focus about the factory, a potential building, but nothing about the supply chain or component design. This felt like a project where many of the partners suspected it was vapourware, but also didn’t want to be seen not getting involved.

29 points by edward 4y ago

For non-UK folks: "administration" is similar to bankruptcy in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_(law)

mattlondon 4y ago
Is it more like Chapter 11?
- neilwilson 4y ago
  No. It's for corporate bodies. When a company goes into administration, the company is dead, and the business is taken over by 'administrators' who run the business and sell it on or wind it up in an orderly fashion. The company is then closed down and any creditors of the company paid out of the remaining proceeds - after the administrators have taken their fee. Think of them as corporate undertakers.
- AngusH 4y ago
  I think the closest US equivalent in this case is chapter 7 bankruptcy. If I've got it right chapter 11 is more a reorganzation and restructuring, while chapter 7 is disposing of the assets to pay off the creditors. This is the latter and UK administration process is usually a sell off of the assets, occasionally a company is sold as a going concern, but mostly it can't be and gets sold as parts.

dinkblam 4y ago

seems this will negatively impact British car makers like Aston Martin and Lotus who had partnerships with Britishvolt: https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/lotus-partners-with-britishvolt-on-new-ev-tech/45247 https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/lotus-partne... https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/aston-partners-with-britishvolt-on-new-batteries/45401 https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-britishcars/aston-partne...

coastermug 4y ago
Reading the rather thin press on the relationship between Lotus and Britishvolt, it seems all Lotus signed was a “memorandum of understanding”.

kulor 4y ago

I wonder if they had adopted a leaner approach of starting with a smaller factory/factories and scaling up they could have avoided this. Multi £B deals that require a cold-start seem destined for failure.

ilyt 4y ago
I'd imagine going smaller would make their stuff even more uncompetitive price-wise

neilwilson 4y ago

Something very odd about this setup. Lots of marketing and PR - not a lot of construction or engineering. I'm sure the full story will emerge in time.

blitzar 4y ago
Looks like a bunch of grifters paying themselves big piles of money and delivering very little. Edit: And there it is ... shocker Britishvolt was founded by Lars Carlstrom, a Swedish automotive executive, and Orral Nadjari, a financier with connections in the Middle East. The former quit two years ago after revelations that he was a convicted tax fraudster. The latter quit this summer amid speculation that he was not up to the job of leading the business into commercialisation.
- europeanguy 4y ago
  You can tell straight away it's a grift from the fact they went thru the trouble of creating a computer graphic of how their factory would look like. I mean, who cares what the factory looks like?
  - blitzar 4y ago
    You have to spend $2.4bn on something, might as well be fancy graphics, because it obviously wasnt a battery factory.

monkeydust 4y ago

https://archive.is/cR213 https://archive.is/cR213 - a Times piece from November. They tried to find a buyer and failed but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those interested pick up the pieces from Administration at a haircut of what they would have had to pay. "The company is understood to be down to its last £5 million. With a monthly wage bill of £2.5 million for the 300 executives and R&D engineers on its books, at an average salary of £100,000 a year, that is unlikely to get the business through Christmas"

ehvatum 4y ago

Reminds me of Chanje, the Chinese EV manufacturer that went bust. I bought one of their beluga-enormous white vans from Ryder for a song and it’s wonderful. Chanje scaled all the way up to million unit beluga-enormous EV van production on Chinese government incentives and then immediately went bankrupt when the incentives went away.

rekabis 4y ago

Strange how so many of these smart and skilled business owners fail to appropriately pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Isn’t that what they always tell “the poors” to do?

prottog 4y ago
What a strange response to this story.

coastermug 4y ago

What R&D and technical capabilities did this company have? It will be interesting to see if anything gets sold off in administration. In the media, I saw lots of focus about the factory, a potential building, but nothing about the supply chain or component design. This felt like a project where many of the partners suspected it was vapourware, but also didn’t want to be seen not getting involved.