Date: 2024-02-20 hits: 212
On February 12, ACC (Automotive Cells Company), a European car battery manufacturer, announced the completion of 4.4 billion euros (equivalent to about 34.108 billion yuan) of debt financing. The financing, one of the largest ever in the European automotive industry, will be used by ACC for the construction of three lithium battery "gigafactories" in France, Germany and Italy.
ACC was established in 2020 to focus on the development and production of power batteries and was jointly established by Stellantis and Saft, a subsidiary of Total Energy, with an initial shareholding of 50% each.In September 2021, Mercedes-Benz became an ACC shareholder through an acquisition, with the three companies each holding one-third of ACC's equity.
With the investment of Mercedes-Benz, ACC has been comprehensively enhanced. On the one hand, the financial strength has improved. According to the agreement at that time, Mercedes-Benz will invest thousands to hundreds of millions of euros in ACC in 2022, and the total investment is expected to be less than 1 billion euros; The Stellantis Group and Total, on the other hand, have committed to at least doubling ACC's battery capacity to 120GWh by 2030, and will supply battery technology to Mercedes-Benz from 2025.
In this financing, the three major shareholders Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and Saft will all participate in the capital increase, and Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz confirmed their commitment as major shareholders and customers of ACC battery modules. By the end of March 2024, Stellantis will hold 45% of ACC, Mercedes-Benz will hold 30% and Saft will hold 25%.
With the investment of Mercedes-Benz, ACC has been comprehensively enhanced. On the one hand, the financial strength has improved. According to the agreement at that time, Mercedes-Benz will invest thousands or even hundreds of millions of euros in ACC in 2022, and the total investment is expected to be less than 1 billion euros; The Stellantis Group and Total, on the other hand, have committed to at least doubling ACC's battery capacity to 120GWh by 2030, and will supply battery technology to Mercedes-Benz from 2025.
The three major shareholders Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and Saft will all participate in the capital increase, and Stellantis and Mercedes-Benz have confirmed their commitment as major shareholders and customers of ACC battery modules. By the end of March 2024, Stellantis will hold 45% of ACC, Mercedes-Benz will hold 30% and Saft will hold 25%.
In addition, the debt financing was fully underwritten by a consortium of commercial banks including BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, ING, Insofar Sanpaolo, and is supported by Bank of France, Hermes and SACE. Earlier, the ACC received €1.3 billion in support from the French and German governments.
Obviously, ACC's huge financing of 4.4 billion euros not only marks the European corporate giants, and even European countries have high hopes for ACC, but also provides a solid financial guarantee for ACC's production capacity.
ACC currently plans to build three gigafactory plants, one in France, Germany and Italy. In December last year, ACC's first French power battery gigafactory in Douvrin, France, was officially commissioned. According to the previous plan, the initial production line capacity of the French plant is more than 13GWh, and will increase to 40GWh by 2030.
ACC also plans to build one gigafactory in Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 2025 and one in Termoli, Italy, in 2026.
From the perspective of capacity planning time, 2024-2026 is the concentrated period of ACC capacity release and construction, but at present, ACC has less information on its battery technology, performance and other aspects, and may be able to reveal a corner when it begins to supply Mercedes-Benz in 2025.
Since there are currently no large local power battery suppliers in Europe, the industry giants and national governments strongly support ACC's purpose is self-evident, that is, to regain Europe's dominance in power battery supply from the large Asian battery manufacturers.
But the reality is that ACC's supply chain is highly dependent on China, or all from China.Lithium equipment: On April 25, 2022, Lead Intelligence signed a strategic cooperation agreement with ACC to provide lithium equipment and solutions for its 14GWh battery factory; From 2020 to 2021, the cooperation orders between Winhe Technology and ACC include the whole line equipment of the test line and the front section equipment of the mass production line. In 2022, the cooperation between the two parties will be upgraded, and Winke Technology will supply part of the front section equipment for ACC's French factory.Separator: On May 5, 2022, Njie announced that its subsidiary SEMCORP Hungary Kft signed a contract with ACC, stipulating that the subsidiary will supply about 655 million euros of lithium battery isolation film products to ACC from 2024 to 2030.
Precision structural parts: ACC and Kodaly signed two purchase agreements in succession at the end of 2022. On November 30, ACC and Kodaly signed a "purchase Agreement", agreeing that from 2024 to 2030, it is expected to purchase about 100 million sets of square lithium battery housing and cover plates from Kodaly; On December 15, the two sides signed a "purchase agreement" again, agreeing that from 2024 to 2030, ACC is expected to purchase about 200 million sets of square lithium battery shells and cover plates from Kodali.Both agreements entered into force on the date of signature and continue until December 31, 2030, and are currently under normal implementation.
Positive electrode materials: According to the disclosure of Rongbai Technology, its customers include ACC.
In addition, it is worth pointing out that on October 28, 2022, the manufacturer of ACC Utterance solid-state batteries, Phineng Technology, signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate in the development of solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.
