L R AS Published on Saturday 19 September 2020 - n° 332 - Categories:accord-cooperation-redemption
The agreement between Leclanché and Eneris is broken
Fefam, the shareholder of Swiss battery manufacturer Leclanché, has just granted the latter a bridging loan of 34 million Swiss francs to give it more time to set up a large battery cell production company in Germany and panel production facilities in Switzerland and Poland,
at a cost of 53 million Swiss francs, with the possibility of creating a third joint venture in France.
This project was to be carried out with Eneris Group, a Polish-Luxembourg clean technology company. The pandemic has delayed the implementation of this investment of 95 million Swiss francs ($105 million).
The health crisis prompted the two partners to break their agreement. Leclanché is now looking for new investors. It has decided to increase the annual production capacity of the future German cell manufacturing plant to 2.4 GWh. The main customers could become shareholders.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/leclanche-restructure-delayed/
PV Magazine of 16 September
Editor's note The real reason is not said.
- Is it Leclanché who did not respect his commitments because of the covid? But Eneris could understand this motive.
- Did the situation get worse for Eneris, which prompted him to walk out of the agreement by claiming that Leclanché had not respected the deadlines? This would explain why Leclanché is looking for new shareholders for its future German plant.
- Another hypothesis, Eneris would have made another analysis of the photovoltaic economic situation, which he would consider sluggish for some time, prompting him to break off a project he considered anticipated.
- Finally, Eneris would have realised Leclanché's difficult situation and the lack of competence of its managers would have encouraged it not to go ahead. In support of this thesis, Leclanché's need for the financing provided by its parent company in order to pass a delicate financial milestone.
