Britishvolt buyer Recharge hit with winding up petition
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Britain’s New Green Economy Booming!!
The company that promised to buy collapsed UK gigafactory Britishvolt has been hit with a winding up petition as creditors chase it for unpaid wages and other monies owed.
Recharge Industries UK, led by Australian entrepreneur David Collard, was issued with a winding up demand by Tom Cowling, a former board member at Britishvolt and its chief governance officer, court records show.
Mr Cowling spent two years at Britishvolt, leaving in August last year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He declined to comment. Details of the winding up petition were not publicly available.
It is the latest legal action against Recharge, which promised to buy the assets of Britishvolt out of administration and revive the project but has struggled to follow through.
Administrators EY said in February that the prospective buyer remained “in default of the business sale agreement” and has yet to pay the full £8.75m owed under the deal. Work on developing the site has remained in limbo.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Hmm, how about this cheesy deal then : https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/business-environment/business/4919339/fife-buffalo-farm-founders-left-high-and-dry-after-firm-goes-into-administration-before-relaunching/ Recharging again with other folk’s cash? God way to do business.
That farm was on “This Farming Life” not long ago.
Aye, … and what good did it do for the Industry and trust? Soshul Meedya at it’s best like with the Gov and Covid or Clim Change …. Just encouraging you to go with the flow and say “Yes!”
Happens with a lot businesses and even if you are a shareholder it doesn’t mean you get anything when a business goes down and restarts – happened to me with HMV. What we lack here is a process where a business can apply to put debt payments on hold so it can have up to 3 years to grow the business and be able to restart debt payments. I an bit surprised at the 60 people employed – seems a lot for a farm these days.
Blinking keyboard ! I’m sure it’s meant to be a GOOD way to do business ( sarc )
Britishvolt was a scam from day1, No Customers, No Intellectual property, No experience in mass production, Employing 3000 in the factory and 5000 in support industry, 8000 Green jobs in a high wage country, Full automation and just a few hundred engineers keeping the robots working is the only way to go.
For once the government, got it right and they pulled the promised funding.
Recharge were a last ditch hope for the local economy to keep the project alive, but it looks like another con.
When will the government realise that “green jobs” are a cost not a benefit.
Second highest electricity costs in Europe for an energy intensive business – what could possibly go wrong.
it seems financial guarantees have not been discharged even if the business has.
Sitting all day with my ear cupped to BBC Radio 4 waiting to hear about this.
The Grauniad carried a piece last week (7th March) about a new UK start up called Natpower which has pledged to”plough £10bn” into battery storage and plans to submit planning applications for 3 gigaparks this year and a further 10 next year.
They say it is part of a specialist European energy group “that is backed by its management team” and a private equity firm.
My immediate thought was is this for real? Any ideas?
Good for keeping the lights on for another half an hour.
AS I Wrote about recently: Inverness Cal Thistle (ICT) FC had it confirmed today that the HRC ( Coonsil) has Rejected their bid for a Battery Farm in the West part of Inverness Town – a greenbelt area. A Local retired(?) Fire Officer spoke about policy of letting fire burn out over 4 days and how to handle the polluted cooling water etc …. Just saying.
Hmmm, we have a bit of rough land away from water flows … maybe I should get a battery farm set up – -making MILLIONS per month !
Farm businesses could benefit from renewable power !!
In tomorrow’s gravy train Grauniad, ”…..Although the Chancellor’s Budget announced on the first day of the Low Carbon Agriculture Show offered little in the way of climate policy, there are positive signs that solar PV and battery storage are growing fast, and onshore wind turbines look set to make a comeback,…..”
Shocking!, well that’s a bolt out of the Blue!
Obviously someone has jumped in too “save” the Giga factory expecting a bloody big bung from a grateful Government to get on with the showpiece. The whole process was doomed to failure before it even started, who were the prospective customers for these batteries?, even more importantly, how did they expect to source the raw materials- China has tied up deals from the main rare earth element mines and quarries for many years ahead, and even if they got the raw materials- their is no UK based manufacturing capacity.
How they cheered when the White Knight rode in, only to notice that under his cloak, there was rusty armour, the horse was lame, the sword although sheathed was broken.
This seems goofy to me. If you buy a company, you get its assets AND its liabilities. If you buy it out of administration, you get the assets and no liabilities. The administrator will distribute the funds to the creditors, which may or may not include wages.
It is the latest legal action against Recharge, which promised to buy the assets of Britishvolt out of administration
The petitioners/creditors can pound sand. They need to talk to the administrator. It has FA to do with Recharge. Recharge pays the administrator; the administrator pays creditors.
Try reading just a bit further.
“Administrators EY said in February that the prospective buyer remained “in default of the business sale agreement” and has yet to pay the full £8.75m owed under the deal.“
And how does this create liability for back wages?
I gather Recharge agreed to pay the Administrator, but has not.
But has also failed to pay its own ongoing bills it has incurred itself, such as wages
If Recharge took it over – without paying for it – then they might have liability.
I thought they had just failed to follow through on the purchase.