Administrators have been unable to secure a viable deal to keep battery maker Redflow (ASX:RFX) in business.
David Orr and Richard Hughes from Deloitte were appointed voluntary administrators on 23 August 2024.
Since their appointment, the administrators have been investigating the financial viability of the Redflow Group, and attempting to seek a sale and/or recapitalisation while trading on a business-as-usual basis.
“The process has not identified a viable transaction that would allow the business to continue as a going concern,” Orr said in an announcement on Friday (18 October).
“Accordingly, operations in Australia will cease from 18 October 2024.”
Queensland-based Redflow created a scalable zinc-bromine flow battery designed for energy storage.
The company says its battery is the “world’s smallest and most scalable” from tens of kilowatt hours up to hundreds of megawatt hours.
Redflow was planning to develop a larger scale X10 battery (based on its existing stack design) targeted at larger megawatt hour scale projects.
The company said in August it had received significant commercial interest and, with a growing customer base, was proposing a new factory be built and commissioned in Queensland to manufacture the new batteries at scale.
However, the plan required significant capital.
While Redflow confirmed it could apply for significant government funding for its plan, in order to secure the funding the company had to raise significant “matching funding” from investors.
Based on encouraging external financial advice, Redflow said it considered and pursued the equity funding sources available to it, but in the current market was unable to attract the required support.
“In the absence of such support, the directors believe that Redflow is unable to continue as a going
concern and have no option but to place the Redflow Group into voluntary administration,” the company said in August.
The administrators are now seeking to engage with parties that are interested in purchasing Redflow’s intellectual property and assets with an advertising campaign commencing in the near future.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Redflow
