The battery manufacturer ACC, owned by Stellantis, Mercedes and TotalEnergies, announced on Monday the completion of major financing for the development of its three European “gigafactories”.
This bank financing of 4.4 billion euros constitutes one of the largest debt raisings ever carried out by the automotive sector in Europe, Automotive Cells Company said in a press release.
This is a major step for the growth of the group’s gigafactories in France, Germany and Italy since the total financing requirement for the projects is estimated at just over seven billion euros.
“This deal with the banks reflects the very high level of confidence of these lenders in the ACC project and reassures us that we are in the right direction,” Yann Vincent, managing director of ACC, told Reuters. ACC.
The raising of 4.4 billion euros, for which BNP Paribas acted as exclusive financial advisor to ACC, will make it possible to develop four new production blocks, which will be added to the first block inaugurated in France at Billy -Berclau/Douvrin (Pas-de-Calais) and whose production of lithium-ion batteries began at the end of 2023.
The first vehicles incorporating these batteries, initially for models from Stellantis brands, must be marketed during 2024, added Yann Vincent.
The four additional blocks include a second in France, the first in the German Kaiserslautern gigactor and a double block in the Italian Termoli gigactor.
The bank financing was concluded with a consortium of banks – BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo – with the support of the French public bank Bpifrance, the credit insurer Euler Hermes and the Italian export insurer SACE .
This bank financing, which is also in addition to public aid already granted or to come, will be supplemented by a new injection of capital from the three shareholders of ACC, the financial amounts of which have not been specified.
Following these capital operations, Stellantis
STLAM.MI, an early shareholder, will hold 45% of ACC at the end of March, Mercedes-Benz – which joined the round later – 30% and Saft (TotalEnergies) 25%.
Until now, one third of ACC’s capital was held by each shareholder.
The production of ACC should notably enable Stellantis to achieve its objective of a battery production capacity of 250GWh in Europe by 2030 to meet the demand for electric vehicles on the continent.
(Report by Gilles Guillaume, edited by Sophie Louet)