The founder of Britishvolt, who was fired, is getting ready to buy back the failed battery start-up out of administration. Orral Nadjari started the business in 2019 but was removed as its CEO last summer. He filed a non-binding bid for the company with administrators EY the previous week and is expected to file a binding offer before Tuesday’s deadline.
According to the sources, “the money for the move, which is between £25 million and £30 million, came from the people of the UAE,” where Nadjari lives. He is mostly interested in the company’s new battery technology, which is still in the prototype stage and needs more money to go to market. Other potential bidders have been more interested in the factory site in Blyth, Northumberland.
Britishvolt wanted to build the UK’s biggest battery factory (called a “gigafactory”). It was looking for money to develop its batteries for sale and expected to get its first big orders from car companies later this year. But the business, which had hired hundreds of people but hadn’t made any money, went out of business earlier this month because it ran out of money.
Its failure hurt the UK’s plans to build a battery factory at home to serve the auto industry. It also happened at a time when governments all over Europe and the world were competing to get battery investments. The Britishvolt factory site in Blyth is likely to be turned into a battery factory by whoever buys the company because the land has restrictions that say it must be used for that purpose.
EY had chosen a few bidders, including an Australian battery start-up called Recharge Industries and a group of current shareholders who made a last-ditch effort to buy the company before it went bankrupt earlier this month. People familiar with the situation say that the administrators must find a buyer this week to keep the company, which has saved 26 people’s jobs.
Nadjari was a controversial leader of Britishvolt. He brought together battery experts and set a vision for the company, but his outgoing personality made it hard for him to work with the UK government and some investors. In an interview, he said he had a “bulldozer visionary entrepreneurial spirit” and called the company “my baby.”
He left the company last summer but was still the biggest shareholder until the company went out of business. Even though he lives in Abu Dhabi, he went back to the UK last week and did several interviews with the media. Recharge Industries, based in Australia and run by a former PwC partner, is thought to be the best bidder among the shortlisted groups. It is mostly interested in the factory site in Blyth, which has clean power and is believed to be one of the best places in Europe to make batteries.
