Greybull Capital, the private equity group linked to the 2019 collapse of British Steel, has emerged as a potential final bidder for Britishvolt.
Executives of the controversial buyout group met with the Management of the start of the dead battery which was there to discuss the proposals, after being brought in recently as possible Savior, according to two people with direct knowledge of the process.
Britishvolt, which had ambitions to build Britain’s biggest battery factory, collapsed into administration two weeks ago, after the low-revenue venture ran out of cash and a last-ditch rescue deal was blocked by creditors.
Administrators at EY asked bidders to submit firm offers by 5 p.m. Wednesday, and pushed to close the deal by the end of the week, according to the people. Greybull is considering whether to submit a final offer, the people added.
The company and EY declined to comment.
Greybull, which was founded more than a decade ago and describes its investment approach as “entrepreneurial and responsible”, came closest to the collapse of Monarch airline and British Steel.
When Monarch ceased trading overnight in 2017 while it was owned by Greybull, the government was forced to arrange the return of around 100,000 stranded people – the biggest UK repatriation since the second world war.
During his time overseeing British Steel, Greybull was hailed as a savior after taking over one of Britain’s last two steel mills in 2016 for a token £1. The deal with Tata India saved more than 4,000 jobs and kept the company’s Scunthorpe site open.
British Steel went into insolvency just three years later, after talks with the government over a £30 million state bailout failed.
His death at the time led to widespread criticism of the group’s management. Greybull has previously defended the approach as supporting the company’s business plan and management team “which needs to undergo transformation”.
Several other possible buyers for Britishvolt have been lined up, including Australian battery group Recharge Industries, Indonesia-linked fund DeaLab, and an offer from a small group of Britishvolt shareholders.
On Monday, the FT reported that Orral Nadjari, the founder of Britishvolt who was ousted as chief executive last summer, was also preparing a bid for the business.
Suitors for the company are divided between wanting the group’s early stage battery technology, which requires more funding for commercialization, and the location of its factory, a 93-hectare site in Blyth in Northumberland.
Now, EY is looking to sell the business as a whole rather than splitting it up, in order to speed up the process, according to the two people.
Any purchaser of the site in Blyth would be bound by a covenant on the land requiring the battery factory to be built by a certain time.
If EY fails to fix a buyer for all the business in the next few days, then the land will be sold separately in a separate process by Begbies Traynor, receiver for Britishvolt’s secured creditors.