Battery manufacturer CustomCells files for insolvency proceedings of key operating entities in Germany

Ger­man bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­er Cus­tom­Cells has filed for insol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings for the group’s key oper­at­ing enti­ties locat­ed in Itze­hoe and Tübin­gen.

In a press release issued ear­li­er this week, the com­pa­ny said the deci­sion stemmed from the insol­ven­cy and pay­ment default of its largest cus­tomer, Lil­i­um. It added that despite promis­ing busi­ness devel­op­ments, no new investors with suf­fi­cient cap­i­tal were secured in time to off­set these loss­es, due in part to the cur­rent chal­leng­ing macro­eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment.

Cou­pled with the strained sit­u­a­tion affect­ing oth­er bat­tery indus­try play­ers, adding fur­ther pres­sure, efforts to avoid insol­ven­cy through sup­port from region­al, fed­er­al and EU insti­tu­tions ulti­mate­ly proved unsuc­cess­ful.

Dr. Dirk Aben­droth, CEO of Cus­tom­Cells, said: “This deci­sion was not made light­ly. Despite our best efforts, out­stand­ing prod­ucts and strong busi­ness devel­op­ment, we are forced to take this step due to exter­nal fac­tors beyond our con­trol.

“Our focus is now on main­tain­ing oper­a­tions as best as pos­si­ble and cre­at­ing a viable path for­ward for the com­pa­ny. We are grate­ful to our employ­ees, cus­tomers, investors, and part­ners for their trust and sup­port dur­ing this chal­leng­ing time.”

Cus­tom­Cells is one of the few Euro­pean play­ers spe­cial­is­ing in high-per­for­mance, tai­lor-made bat­tery cells and one of the very few bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ers based in Ger­many.

The com­pa­ny recent­ly announced the con­struc­tion of a state-of-the-art pilot facil­i­ty for inno­v­a­tive cylin­dri­cal cells in Tübin­gen, as part of a large-scale fund­ing ini­tia­tive aimed at bridg­ing the gap between research and indus­tri­al-scale pro­duc­tion.

The com­pe­tent court in Kiel has appoint­ed attor­ney Dr. Malte Köster, a part­ner at the law firm WILLMERKÖSTER, as the pre­lim­i­nary insol­ven­cy admin­is­tra­tor of the oper­at­ing com­pa­nies.

Dr. Köster and his team have already begun their work as pre­lim­i­nary insol­ven­cy admin­is­tra­tors. Employ­ees were informed of the insol­ven­cy fil­ing and the next steps in the pre­lim­i­nary pro­ceed­ings dur­ing an all-hands meet­ing.

Busi­ness oper­a­tions at Cus­tom­Cells will con­tin­ue for the time being. Employ­ee wages and salaries are secured through June 2025. In par­al­lel with sta­bi­liz­ing ongo­ing oper­a­tions, prepa­ra­tions are under­way to restart the investor search process.

The hold­ing com­pa­ny of the Cus­tom­Cells Group is not affect­ed by the insol­ven­cy fil­ing at this time.

In an ini­tial state­ment, Dr Köster added: “Cus­tom­Cells is a pre­mi­um bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­er and one of the pio­neers in cut­ting-edge bat­tery cell tech­nol­o­gy, with a strong focus on research. The envi­ron­ment for star­tups in Ger­many is cur­rent­ly dif­fi­cult, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the bat­tery sec­tor. Ulti­mate­ly, the devel­op­ments at Lil­i­um have sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ed Cus­tom­Cells.

“We are now work­ing to gain a full under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion and, over the com­ing days and weeks, will eval­u­ate what restruc­tur­ing options are avail­able under insol­ven­cy pro­tec­tion. At the same time, we will launch a new investor process togeth­er with the man­age­ment team.”