Battery gigafactory Britishvolt gets £200m boost Business

Britishvolt, a company which aims to build the country’s first large-scale battery factory for electric cars, has secured £200million in funding from backers including Glencore.

The FTSE 100 commodities trader has contributed £40m to a funding round that values ​​Britishvolt at almost £800m, although its planned gigafactory site in Northumberland has yet to manufacture a single battery .

The deal comes after the government paid £100million to back a £1.7billion sale and leaseback of the property near Blyth last month. Britishvolt said it aims to be operational by the end of next year.

Glencore’s involvement in Britishvolt’s third round equity financing reflects the opportunity presented to the commodities industry by the need for copper, cobalt and other metals and minerals in batteries.

The company was already a shareholder and is aiming for rapid growth in electric car sales as it comes under pressure from shareholders to exit traditional markets such as coal.

News of the investment came as Glencore released its 2021 results, in which it revealed it had set aside $1.5bn (£1.1bn) to resolve investigations into corruption in the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil.

Glencore said it expected those investigations to be resolved this year, four years after it first emerged that it was under investigation by the US Department of Justice over allegations. allegations of money laundering and corruption.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office launched its own investigation into the allegations in late 2019.

Managing Director Gary Nagle said: “We recognize that there have been faults in this business historically and that there were flaws in our culture and we have worked very hard to correct that.

“We want to complete these investigations, put a line under it and move on.”

It came as Glencore posted its highest ever profit for 2021, with adjusted profit nearly doubling in the year to $21.3 billion. Revenue rose 43% year-on-year to $203.8 billion, as Glencore said there was growing demand for its metals and energy products.

The company said it saw “multi-year or record prices for many of our core products” during the year.

Glencore is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of thermal coal, used to generate electricity. He recently faced pressure from activist Bluebell to spin off his coal business due to “financial and environmental considerations”.

However, unlike other miners who have already sold their coal mines or made plans to exit the industry, Glencore has maintained that its plan is to dismantle the mines over the next 30 years.

Glencore said it would return $4 billion to shareholders under a buyback program, thanks to the “significant improvement” in its financial results.