Northvolt's Swedish bankruptcies

analysisOn 12 March 2025 the Stockholm District Court (Stockholms tingsrätt) declared Northvolt AB, Northvolt Ett AB, Northvolt Labs AB, Northvolt Systems AB and Northvolt Revolt AB bankrupt (konkurs) and appointed Mikael Kubu as bankruptcy trustee (konkursförvaltare) of each company, according to a notice by Kronofogden (the Swedish Enforcement Authority) of 14 March 2025 and the creditor information page of Ackordscentralen, which publishes the trustee's statements. A Swedish news report of 23 June 2025 states that the board had petitioned the Stockholm District Court for the five companies' bankruptcy after Northvolt failed to raise capital during the US restructuring. Kronofogden stated that it would cease all enforcement against the bankrupt companies and referred creditors to the trustee. Swedish company registry records reproduced by a business-information service list Kubu, registered as Per Mikael Kubu, as board member and managing director (verkställande direktör) of Ackordscentralen Stockholm Aktiebolag. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisOn 31 March 2025 Kubu announced that the bankruptcy estates had reached an agreement in principle with the most closely affected parties on financial guarantees for continued operation within the bankruptcy, to be formalised in the following days; the announcement named neither the parties nor the amounts of the guarantees. Continued operation would employ about 1,700 of the bankrupt companies' employees, in addition to staff of foreign subsidiaries, while the remaining staff would be released from work. ¹

analysisIn a later account, a statement of 7 August 2025, the trustee said that thanks to the staff's commitment and enormous support from Scania, production was temporarily resumed in spring 2025, without stating the form or amount of Scania's support. On 22 May 2025 the trustee stated that a due diligence process was under way for battery-cell production in Skellefteå, Northvolt Ett AB's production, but that the estate saw no near-term prospect of a buyer taking over production. Production had continued with fewer employees thanks to support from the existing customer, an arrangement not sustainable in the long term for a single party or for the estate, so cell production at Northvolt Ett would be gradually wound down with the aim of stopping on 30 June 2025 while the search for a buyer continued. A Swedish news report of 23 June 2025 quoted the trustee as saying that the Skellefteå factory would close at the end of June, that dismantling had not begun and could take two years if it came to that, and that new interested parties had come forward in recent weeks. In the August statement the trustee said that when production stopped the business was left without revenue, the potential buyers chose not to proceed and planning for a complete wind-down began, until new interested parties appeared in June 2025. Those negotiations, the trustee said, led to an agreement with Lyten, which announced binding agreements on 7 August 2025 and announced on 26–27 February 2026 that it had completed the acquisition of Northvolt Ett, Ett Expansion and Northvolt Labs. ^{1 2}

analysisIn the statement of 7 August 2025 the trustee described Northvolt's March 2025 bankruptcy as the largest in modern Swedish history, with close to SEK 80 billion in debts and about 5,000 employees, and as one of the largest industrial bankruptcies in Europe in modern times; the situation had been particularly critical in Skellefteå, the trustee said, where the factory had no liquid funds at all. These are the trustee's own approximate figures, not broken down by company. A Swedish news report of 23 June 2025, based on the bankruptcy inventories (konkursbouppteckningar) of Northvolt AB and Northvolt Ett AB that the trustee had submitted to the district court, stated that the two companies' debts totalled over SEK 80 billion: the inventories summed to SEK 88 billion, with a few billion counted twice according to the trustee, while their assets, including the factory building, machinery and raw-material stock in Skellefteå, were valued at just under SEK 2.4 billion, leaving a shortfall of around SEK 80 billion. The report contrasted this with debts of nearly SEK 60 billion summed for the whole group when Northvolt filed for restructuring in the US court the previous autumn. The inventories themselves are not among the inspected records. On 13 June 2026 the district court ordered a claims procedure (bevakningsförfarande) in the bankruptcies of Northvolt AB, Northvolt Labs AB, Northvolt Systems AB and Northvolt Revolt AB, with a deadline of 21 August 2026 for creditors to lodge claims; Ackordscentralen's creditor page lists no such procedure for Northvolt Ett AB. ^{1 2}

analysisAccording to the same news report, the inventories of Northvolt AB and Northvolt Ett AB show supplier debts (leverantörsskulder) totalling SEK 6 billion and claims of SEK 736 million by Skatteverket (the Swedish Tax Agency), amounts the report does not split between the two companies, and neither category could expect any recovery. Northvolt Ett AB owes SEK 18 billion to a bank syndicate for which Swedbank is security agent, under a 2020 project-finance loan; the syndicate holds pledged property, and the trustee expected it and other priority creditors to receive some distribution in the bankruptcy, while the Swedish banks in the syndicate had themselves lent relatively small amounts according to Kubu. The report also stated that the US advisers engaged for Northvolt's chapter 11 filing were claiming SEK 318 million from the bankruptcy estate, and that one of the firms, not named in the passage, asserted that its SEK 80 million claim ranked ahead of both the bank syndicate and Scania, which holds Northvolt's Västerås facility as security for its billion-kronor loan; that ranking is one firm's assertion, not a ruling. In August 2025 the trustee was reported as saying that most of the money from the sale to Lyten would go to the lending banks and to Scania, because a large part of Northvolt's assets were pledged or subject to security transfers. ²

analysisOn 13 June 2026 the Stockholm District Court ordered a claims procedure (bevakningsförfarande) in the bankruptcies of Northvolt AB (case K 4940-25), Northvolt Systems AB (K 4937-25), Northvolt Labs AB (K 4947-25) and Northvolt Revolt AB (K 4951-25). According to Ackordscentralen's creditor information page, creditors had to lodge their claims in writing with the court by 21 August 2026, including those who had earlier lodged claims with Ackordscentralen; the page lists no such claims procedure for Northvolt Ett AB. A Swedish news-summary item dated 20 August, citing a Swedish business daily, reported that more than 700 claims had been lodged against Northvolt's bankruptcy estate ahead of that Friday's deadline, the creditors including Volkswagen, said to be claiming billions of kronor, public authorities, former senior executives and the Sami reindeer-herding community Mausjaur sameby. The item shows no year; it is read as 20 August 2026 because it sits in a news feed between items of 11 and 25 September 2026 and an item of 7 July, and the Friday deadline matches the court-ordered deadline of Friday 21 August 2026. Individual claim amounts are not given. ^{1 2 3}

analysisCredit-information data reproduced by a Swedish business-information service show the debt balances registered with Kronofogden as of 10 October 2026, all in public claims (allmänna mål) and none in private claims (enskilda mål): Northvolt AB SEK 61,072,218; Northvolt Ett AB SEK 59,260,315; Northvolt Revolt AB SEK 6,686,344; Northvolt Systems AB SEK 3,850,068; Northvolt Ett Expansion AB SEK 3,569,218; Northvolt Labs AB SEK 3,503,472; and Aurora Lithium AB SEK 0. As of the same date the data record payment remarks (betalningsanmärkningar) for public claims in the preceding five years and a total of payment-order (betalningsföreläggande) cases as follows: Northvolt AB 18 remarks and 287 payment-order cases; Northvolt Ett AB 19 and 386; Northvolt Labs AB 1 and 137; Northvolt Systems AB 18 and 49; Northvolt Revolt AB 3 and 119; Northvolt Ett Expansion AB 3 and 58; Aurora Lithium AB none. These are counts of registered payment remarks and payment-order applications; they do not show amounts or outcomes. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7}

analysisBankruptcy proceedings were also opened for two other group companies. Swedish company registry records reproduced by a business-information service show that konkurs proceedings for Northvolt Ett Expansion AB were opened at the Stockholm District Court on 8 October 2024, before the chapter 11 filing of 21 November 2024 and the March 2025 bankruptcies of Northvolt AB and four other group companies, and that the company has no registered board. Records of the same kind show that bankruptcy (konkurs) proceedings for Aurora Lithium AB were opened at the Stockholm District Court on 27 May 2025. For Northvolt Fem AB the registry records show a liquidation (likvidation): in a page last updated on 25 July 2025, records reproduced by a business-information service show the liquidation decided on 3 July 2025, with Lars Elving Borgsten as liquidator (likvidator), who alone signs for the company. ^{1 2 3 4 5}