Lazard has been given just five weeks to find a buyer for Britain’s only planned gigafactory, after the plug was pulled on Britishvolt.
The investment bank has been told to woo US private equity, with the potential for a longer-term deal with Chinese or Korean battery or automotive firms. A possible deal with Tata Automotive, which owns Jaguar Land Rover, has fallen through after the government refused to commit to backing the £3.8bn project.
The decision to put Britishvolt up for sale comes after Grant Shapps, the business secretary, refused to allow it to draw down £30m of bridging finance from £100m it had been promised as part of the taxpayer-backed Automotive Transformation Fund. Extra funds were to be released when the building work started on site in Blythe, Northumberland, but that had been pushed back to the first quarter of next year due to cost increases.
