Private Equity

PE Fund Investments

RIL to acquire assets of Dutch battery firm Lithium Werks for $61-M

Press Release  

Reliance New Energy Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of publicly listed Reliance Industries Ltd, is to acquire substantially all of the assets of Netherlands-headquartered Lithium Werks BV for USD 61 million (including fresh investments). Lithium Werks is a provider of cobalt free and high-performance Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries. Covington & Burling LLP acted as the legal advisor and Deloitte as the accounting and tax advisor to Reliance on this transaction. The assets being acquired include the entire patent portfolio of Lithium Werks, manufacturing facility in China, key business contracts and hiring of existing employees. Lithium Werks brings 30+ years of battery expertise as part of its management team and nearly 200 MWh annual production capacity including coating, cell and custom module manufacturing capability. The combination of Lithium Werks with Reliance's recently announced acquisition of Faradion Ltd, a global leader in sodium-ion cell chemistry, is expected to strengthen Reliance's technology portfolio and allow Reliance to leverage both one of the world's leading portfolio of LFP patents and a senior management team with experience of innovation in cell chemistry, custom modules, packing, and building large scale battery manufacturing facility. This enables Reliance to establish an end-to-end battery ecosystem that will allow it to combine not only manufacturing at large scale certain key supply chain materials, but also a cell manufacturing facility as well as it leading IOT/AI capabilities giving it the flexibility to produce batteries consisting of different chemistries for various applications across energy storage and mobility and battery module systems.