Production unlikely to resume at big battery factory in Concord, filing shows

High-tech battery maker Alevo has found a buyer for most of its assets, but a bankruptcy court filing this week makes it appear unlikely that production will resume at its plant in Concord.

The U.S. operations of the Swiss-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August and laid off 290 workers, a disappointing end to a once-promising start-up story. The company had struggled financially as production lagged projections.

An unspecified bidder has contracted to buy all of the assets of the Alevo Manufacturing unit for $5 million in a sale expected to close next Tuesday, the filing said.

But the filing adds that financial problems at the company’s Swiss parent “made it very difficult for the intellectual property owned by the parent companies to be sold along with the Debtors’ assets to achieve maximum value and (possibly) enable continued production in Concord, North Carolina.”

An Australian company called Magnis Resources Limited said in a press release this month that it had partnered with a firm that made the winning bid on battery making equipment currently located in North Carolina. Magnis didn’t identify the name of the seller but the details match Alevo. The release said the equipment will be moved to New York.

A source also told the Observer Thursday that the buyer plans to move the equipment to New York.

Last month, an official involved in the auction had said that if a buyer purchased the company’s assets in bulk it was possible that production could resume in Concord.

Representatives for Alevo and its landlord could not be reached for comment. The filing also asked the court to approve a motion to convert the bankruptcy from a chapter 11 filing to a chapter 7 liquidation case, which was granted Wednesday.

Alevo arrived in Cabarrus County in 2014 with great fanfare, vowing to create hundreds of jobs through its revolutionary energy-storage technology on the site of a former Philip Morris cigarette factory. But production and hiring lagged those projections.

The company gained renewed attention last spring when a Russian billionaire emerged as a new investor, but his backing wasn’t enough to boost the company.

This story was originally published February 15, 2018 at 2:25 PM with the headline "Production unlikely to resume at big battery factory in Concord, filing shows."