An Australian firm has swooped for Johnson Matthey’s battery materials business in a £50m deal, acquiring several UK sites while also saving jobs.
EV Metals Group has snapped up the Battery Materials business assets in Billingham on Teesside, plus sites in Oxford, Germany and Poland, together with a package of patents, licences and a team of 100 technical personnel in the deal, to become “a new force” in the electric vehicles supplies market. The deal comes five months after Johnson Matthey placed 150 staff at the firm’s Billingham plant under consultation, after owners announced plans to close the battery materials business.
EV Metals Group will keep the North East site open and it also hopes to announce further recruitment and investment. The deal includes the battery technology centre, together with its pilot plant and research laboratories, as well as Johnson Matthew’s battery divisions in Oxford, Germany and one under construction in Poland. Johnson Matthey take a minority equity stake in EVM and a seat on the board.
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Newcastle digital agency Venture Stream is launching an online marketplace to help freelancers find work on the back of a £750,000 investment package.
Founded in 2014 by Vic Morgan, the e-commerce and digital marketing business has grown its turnover, client base and workforce and now has a team of 27 employees managing more than 60 accounts across a range of sectors.
The Newcastle city centre based business, which last year moved its staff to a four-day week to give them a better work-life balance, has tapped into the investment from the North of Tyne Culture and Creative Investment Programme and Creative UK’s landmark Creative Growth Finance fund. The company said that Creative UK’s investment will enable it to accelerate the growth of its consulting business and launch an online marketplace to help top freelancers find work.
A virtual reality entertainment centre is set to open in County Durham after entrepreneurs tapped into six-figure investment.
Rachel and Kaiyn Crooks opened their first Gaming Hideaway in Thornaby last year, after spotting a gap in the market for a family-focused venue bringing different VR and gaming technologies under one roof. Having proved and refined the concept over the last year, they are now set to open a second Gaming Hideaway on Newgate Street in Bishop Auckland town centre, which is almost twice the size of the original.
The expansion has been made possible after the pair worked with regional fund management firm NEL Fund Managers to bring in the £150,000 Growth Capital Fund investment.
North East software consultancy Scott Logic has sealed a two-year deal worth £9m with HM Land Registry as part of the department’s transformation programme.
Scott Logic, which recently revealed plans to create more than 200 new jobs by moving to its new head office at Newcastle Helix, provides a range of technology services to organisations such as the Scottish Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and NatWest Group. Now the company, which also has offices in Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Copenhagen, is helping HM Land Registry to ramp up it digital transformation.
Digital visualisation specialist Animmersion has received a six-figure investment from UKSE that will be used to hire new talent.
The Middlesbrough firm - which offers virtual and augmented reality, holograms and animation among other services - has seen 25% growth in turnover for two years in a row, despite the challenges of Covid. It is the second UKSE investment in 19-strong Animmersion, which counts customers in a range of sectors including engineering, healthcare, offshore, science, energy and retail.
Sam Harrison, Animmersion’s CEO, said "We are currently advertising for technical artists and a senior creative but are always looking for new talent. This second investment from UKSE will help us to grow our team and consider a number of growth plans including the setting up of a demonstration space."
Britishvolt has signed a deal with leading battery solutions business Monbat Group to purchase its subsidiary EAS. The agreement values EAS - an advanced technology battery cell innovator and manufacturer based in Nordhausen, Germany - at €36m (£30.8m) and is subject to completion and any regulatory approvals.
The deal for EAS – which has more than 25 years’ experience in developing and producing large format cylindrical lithium-ion battery cells – marks the second acquisition Britishvolt has made in its quest to bring forward the gigaplant plans.
County Durham's Kromek has secured a £554,000 ($695,000) order to provide wearable radiation detection equipment to a customer in the US.
The repeat order from a US federal organisation follows the awarding of a £1.2m ($1.6m) two-year contract in September 2021 and will help armed forces, border security and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear experts to detect threats such as dirty bombs and radioactive contamination.
Kromek's D3S-ID equipment is said to be one of the fastest and most accurate isotope identification devices on the market for first responders.
Two United Arab Emirates firms have backed bp's hydrogen projects on Teesside. The country's largest energy company - ADNOC - will take a 25% stake in the design stage of bp's blue hydrogen project, while renewable energy specialist Masdar has signed a memorandum of understanding to take a stake in bp's proposed green hydrogen project, HyGreen Teesside.
Together, the projects are expected to deliver about 15% of the Government's recently expanded 10GW target for hydrogen production in 2030. ADNOC's investment into H2Teesside - its first in the UK - will now advance the project to the next stage of design for the two 500MW hydrogen production units by 2030 before start of operations in 2027. And bp will also partner with ADNOC to evaluate a new blue hydrogen project in Abu Dhabi.
Meanwhile Masdar's intention to acquire a stake in HyGreen Teesside will spur the project which is designed to produce 60 megawatt electrical input of hydrogen at start-up in 2025, increased to 500 megawatt electrical input by 2030.
Subsea engineering firm Tekmar has won new work in the US to provide its cable protection systems to an offshore wind farm.
The Darlington-based company told shareholders the "significant" new contract is expected to be delivered in 2023, and would strengthen its US presence. It follows Tekmar's appointment by DEME Offshore to provide similar work on the Dogger Bank offshore wind project - one of the group's largest contracts to date.
A joint venture spearheaded by LSL Property Services and investors Pollen Street Capital has acquired The Loan Partnership Limited.
The deal, which is subject to approval by the Financial Conduct Authority, will see the Hemel Hempstead-based loan broker and mortgage advisory firm acquired by Pivotal Growth Limited. The Loan Partnership (TLP) was set up in 2013 and focuses on providing mortgage advice for second charge mortgages and bridging finance.
TechnipFMC has won a “significant” contract from offshore energy firm Equinor for the Halten East development on the Norwegian continental shelf.
The size of the contract – which covers the manufacture and installation of flowlines and the installation of umbilicals and subsea structures – has not been disclosed by TechnipFMC, but the company says that “significant” contracts are between $75m and $250m.
Separately, Equinor said the contract was worth between 1.3bn and 1.5bn Norwegian krone (£108m-£125m). In all, contracts worth 9bn Norwegian krone have been announced by Equinor on what is a significant gas field off the coast of Norway.
The project is planned to be executed in two phases, with six wells to be drilled in 2024-2025, and a second phase scheduled for 2029. The contracts are subject to Norwegian Government approval.
Recycling company Wastefront AS has signed an agreement that paves the way for the building of a £100m tyre recycling plant in Sunderland.
The agreement with Gateway Resources guarantees supply of end-of-life-tyres (ELTs) for Wastefront’s Port of Sunderland plant, which was given planning permission in January and should be operational by 2024. Once at full capacity, the plant will be able to process 80,000 tonnes of used tyres every year.
