Swedish lithium-ion battery producer Northvolt has raised $1.2 billion from traders together with BlackRock and several other Canadian pension plans because it prepares to construct new factories in Europe and North America, its finance chief informed Reuters.
The contemporary funding, by a convertible be aware, comes as investor demand for firms set to learn from the transfer to a low-carbon financial system picks up tempo, aided by coverage initiatives in each areas to speed up the transition.
“It’s a very capital intensive industry… finding the right mix is always hard in this new greenfield kind of transitional projects,” Chief Financial Officer Alexander Hartman stated in an interview.
Leading the spherical alongside BlackRock, the world’s greatest asset supervisor, have been Canada Pension Plan, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and, as beforehand reported, pension investor Investment Management Corporation of Ontario.
“The battery manufacturing sector has attractive growth potential driven by the accelerating adoption of battery storage and electric vehicles,” stated David Giordano, world head of local weather infrastructure at BlackRock.
“As a leading investor in the energy transition, we look forward to supporting their continued growth.”
Other traders to participate included Goldman Sachs, Volkswagen, Baillie Gifford, Swedbank Robur, Singapore’s GIC and Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
A variety of funds to put money into the be aware have been classed as ‘dark green’ below the European Union’s sustainable finance framework, a stamp of environmental approval that bodes nicely for future curiosity within the firm, which in the end hopes to listing, Hartman stated.
The contemporary funds will assist the agency broaden its manufacturing facility footprint, Hartman stated. The agency at the moment has a number of factories throughout Europe with the newest a 600 million euros ($654 million) funding to construct a plant in Germany, introduced in May.
While the corporate has a facility within the United States, sources stated the corporate is near finalising plans to construct a multibillion-greenback battery manufacturing facility in Canada that can be introduced later this yr.
Northvolt declined to touch upon the manufacturing facility plans.
With the newest spherical, Northvolt has raised greater than $9 billion in debt and fairness since 2017 in its bid to change into Europe’s greatest battery producer, together with $1.1 billion in convertible notes final yr from a number of traders.
It has secured orders of over $55 billion from clients similar to BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volvo Cars and Volkswagen.
Separately, Northvolt has assembled its first vitality storage system merchandise in Poland and expects to start out buyer deliveries from later this yr.
“We have a business plan… we always want to make sure we have access to the markets,” Hartman stated.
He declined to touch upon whether or not the corporate was getting ready to go public.
Reuters has beforehand reported, citing sources, that Northvolt was getting ready for an preliminary public providing that might worth the corporate at greater than $20 billion.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Simon Jessop in London; modifying by Mark Potter)
