Lyten, a Silicon Valley company, said Thursday that it would acquire all of the remaining Swedish and German assets of Northvolt, which filed for bankruptcy in March after spending billions of euros in an attempt to establish a European player in electric vehicle batteries.
The acquisition, for an undisclosed price, is an audacious move by Lyten, which was founded 10 years ago and has only recently begun producing batteries and other products. The firm will have to overcome the financial and technical problems that confounded Northvolt’s managers.
Northvolt spent more than $5 billion to compete with Chinese and South Korean companies that dominate the battery industry. But the Swedish company suffered a series of setbacks. Two of its workers died in factory accidents. And a large automaker, BMW, decided against buying batteries from Northvolt.
Taking on Northvolt’s factories would seem to be an enormous challenge for a start-up just beginning to produce batteries and other products in commercial quantities. But Lyten’s management team includes veterans of General Motors, Tesla, Panasonic and Exxon Mobil, Keith Norman, its chief marketing and sustainability officer, said in an email.
“We have a solid financial foundation, we have access to the capital we need, we have a diverse set of customers demanding our products and we have the deep manufacturing expertise to execute,” Mr. Norman said. He added that Lyten had acquired the assets “at a very reasonable discount.”
Lyten, based in San Jose, Calif., said it would restart operations at a large Northvolt factory in northern Sweden and at a research and development center near Stockholm. Lyten, which earlier acquired Northvolt factories in California and Poland, will also buy a battery plant that was under construction in Germany. The transaction includes Northvolt’s intellectual property.
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