--- title: "Northvolt's chapter 11 case in Texas" language: en canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/northvolt/chapter-11/ as_of: 2026-10-13 keywords: ["Northvolt AB","Northvolt Ett","Northvolt Drei","Northvolt Six","Northvolt Dwa","Lyten","Volkswagen","Goldman Sachs Asset Management","KfW convertible bond","Chapter 11","Swedish bankruptcy","Mikael Kubu","StaRUG","CCAA","Investissement Québec","Schleswig-Holstein","Skellefteå","Heide","Scania","battery cells"] --- # Northvolt's chapter 11 case in Texas **Question.** How did Northvolt's US chapter 11 case work, who financed and advised it, and how did it end? **Answer.** On 21 November 2024 Northvolt AB and affiliated debtors, nine of the group's thirty entities according to the first-day declaration, filed for chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, three days after Northvolt established NV Texas, LLC. Scania agreed to provide a $100 million debtor-in-possession loan and the prepetition lenders agreed to releases of cash from Northvolt Ett accounts, while Teneo, Rothschild & Co, Kirkland & Ellis and Hilco Global were engaged as advisers. After the debtors announced a Swedish bankruptcy liquidation, Judge Alfredo R. Pérez dismissed eight of the cases on 1 April 2025 and kept the NV Texas case open until fees were paid and professionals' final fee applications decided. ## The petition, the debtors and the Texas venue - Analysis: On 21 November 2024 Northvolt AB and affiliated debtors filed voluntary petitions under chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. According to the first-day declaration of Scott Millar of Teneo, the debtors' financial adviser, the cases were jointly administered under the lead case of Northvolt AB, No. 24-90577 (ARP). The declaration describes Northvolt's organisation as thirty entities, including joint ventures with Volvo, Galp and Hydro, incorporated in Sweden, Germany, Canada, Norway, Poland, the United States, Japan and Portugal, of which nine were debtors. On venue, it states that each of the nine debtors held property in the United States, namely a US bank account with a balance of at least $1,000, and that the debtors had funded a $250,000 retainer to Texas counsel Haynes and Boone LLP, held in a Texas client trust account. The parties concluded that Texas was the preferred US venue, and Northvolt established NV Texas, LLC on 18 November 2024, before commencing the cases. [src-053] [src-074] [src-076] - Analysis: Media reported on 26 November 2024 that Northvolt's factories under construction in Heide, Germany, and in Quebec, Canada, were said not to be affected by the chapter 11 filing because they were operated and financed by the Northvolt AB subsidiaries Northvolt Germany and Northvolt North America, a point the report itself qualified with 'supposedly'. The court's list of debtors in the dismissal order of 1 April 2025 contains no German or Canadian company. A Canadian federal briefing note received on 29 November 2024 states that Northvolt North America was not part of the filing and continued its operations, and that the company had said the Quebec project would continue as usual outside the chapter 11 process; the debtors' first-day declaration describes Northvolt Batteries North America Inc. as a non-debtor and says the plans for Northvolt Six in Québec and Northvolt Drei in Heide had been postponed but remained important to the company's future strategy. Afterwards, the opening of the chapter 11 proceedings made the €600 million KfW-subscribed convertible of Northvolt AB, whose funds were earmarked for Northvolt Drei, fall due; Schleswig-Holstein paid its €300 million guarantee share to the federation on 7 April 2025, and the German project company later went through a StaRUG restructuring and a solvent liquidation. In Canada the Quebec government ended its financing of Northvolt Batteries North America on 2 September 2025, and a CCAA initial order was issued for that company and two related entities on 5 September 2025. [src-005] [src-075] ## Scania's DIP loan and the cash collateral - Analysis: Scott Millar's first-day declaration describes the months before the filing. In late August 2024, as liquidity was again strained, certain investors said they could not fund an increase of the shareholder bridge facility without commitments from other stakeholders; Northvolt and its stakeholders then devised a $384 million interim financing, the 'Stable Platform', meant to provide liquidity until mid-January 2025 while a wider recapitalisation was negotiated: $150 million of new commitments from the shareholder bridge lenders, a $100 million commitment from Scania to Northvolt AB and a $134 million release from Northvolt Ett AB's debt service reserve account. In October 2024 the prepetition secured lenders and the bridge lenders provided an execution bridge of a $24.8 million release from the reserve account to Northvolt Ett AB, with first-ranking security over the shares in Northvolt Labs AB, and $24.8 million of previously unapplied bridge funds. No final deal was reached, so the company could not secure new financing out of court and turned to debtor-in-possession financing from Scania and the consensual use of the secured lenders' cash collateral. According to the declaration, Northvolt agreed before the filing with Scania on a $100 million senior-secured, superpriority, multi-draw debtor-in-possession (DIP) term loan facility, to be funded in three tranches of $51 million, $25 million and $24 million. With its prepetition secured lenders it agreed on access to cash collateral through an approximately $110 million release from the Northvolt Ett debt service reserve account (DSRA), $28 million of which was to stay in the DSRA until a pledge over the shares held by Northvolt AB in Northvolt Batteries North America Inc. was granted, and an approximately $35 million release from other Northvolt Ett AB bank accounts. Swedish media reported on 21 November 2024, citing another outlet, that Scania would provide $100 million, stated as equivalent to SEK 1.1 billion, in DIP financing in Northvolt's US restructuring, and quoted a Scania press officer confirming that Scania was the lender, that it was lending in order to support production in Skellefteå, and that it had been in close contact with Northvolt throughout the process; the facility's terms are those documented in the chapter 11 filings. Rothschild & Co's engagement letter of 16 December 2024 names the DIP lender as Scania CV AB or its affiliates and records that the court had approved the Scania facility and the use of the DSRA on an interim basis, subject to a final hearing then scheduled for 17 December 2024; the dismissal order of 1 April 2025 refers to the Final DIP Order and the Final Cash Collateral Order and provides that the Final DIP Order survives the dismissal. [src-074] [src-110] [src-075] [src-052] ## Advisers, the Rothschild mandate and its fee - Analysis: The declaration states that Northvolt engaged Teneo as financial adviser and Rothschild & Co as investment banker in August 2024 and Kirkland & Ellis as counsel in September 2024. With Rothschild's assistance it had begun a comprehensive marketing process seeking partners for DIP and exit financing, with proposals invited by early December 2024, and it had engaged Hilco Global to assist with an orderly liquidation process if necessary. [src-074] - Analysis: Rothschild's engagement was set out in a letter between Northvolt AB and N.M. Rothschild & Sons Limited and Rothschild & Co US Inc., dated as of 16 December 2024 and addressed to Tom Johnstone as chairman of Northvolt AB, which retained Rothschild & Co as financial adviser and investment banker to Northvolt AB and its affiliated debtors. Johnstone signed it on behalf of Northvolt AB and its affiliated debtors as Chairman of the Board on 17 December 2024. The debtors applied to retain Rothschild on 20 December 2024 (Docket No. 203), and the letter is filed as Exhibit 1 to the revised proposed retention order (Document 393-1, 7 February 2025). It superseded a prior agreement with N.M. Rothschild & Sons Limited of 13 November 2024. According to the revised proposed retention order, the letter replaced an earlier engagement letter between the debtors and Rothschild & Co Equity Markets Solutions Limited, an affiliate of Rothschild & Co, dated 21 December 2023 and amended on 28 June 2024, and a separate engagement letter with N.M. Rothschild & Sons Limited dated 7 August 2024 and amended and restated on 13 November 2024. [src-110] - Analysis: Under section 4 of the engagement letter, Northvolt AB and its affiliated debtors were to pay Rothschild & Co a New Capital Fee of $4 million upon entry of a final order approving DIP financing. The official committee of unsecured creditors filed a sealed objection to the retention application (Docket No. 244); after it was resolved consensually, the debtors filed on 7 February 2025 a revised proposed order fixing the New Capital Fee at $3.0 million in cash and allowing $20,489.10 of expenses on a final basis. That document was submitted with a certificate of counsel and is unsigned in the inspected copy; the order as entered is not among the inspected records. [src-110] ## Sale processes carried into the case - Analysis: The first-day declaration states that before the filing Northvolt had substantially advanced a sale process for certain assets of the debtors Northvolt Systems AB, Northvolt Poland sp. z o.o. and Northvolt Revolt AB that were not part of its go-forward business plan, and that it intended to complete these sales during the chapter 11 cases. In a declaration of 4 March 2025 supporting the debtors' sale motion for the industrials business (Docket No. 531), Emma Nehrenheim gave the declarant's roles as President of Northvolt Battery Systems and Materials, previously for about seven years Northvolt's Head of Environment and Sustainability and Chief Environmental Officer, registered chief executive officer of Northvolt Revolt AB since September 2024 and a board member since its registration in 2020, and from 2020 to 2024 a board member of Hydrovolt AS, the joint venture of Northvolt Revolt AB and Hydro Energi Invest AS. [src-074] ## The creditors' committee and the service list - Analysis: Stretto's certificate of service filed on 12 December 2024 (Document 144) lists the official committee of unsecured creditors of Northvolt AB et al. care of its seven members: Ava Investors, SA; Easpring Technology LTD; IMCO Global Public Equity Subco LP; Kataoka Corporation; LF Co., LTD; RJ & Collab GmbH; and PCS Holding AG. The electronic-mail service list in the same certificate gives a Goldman Sachs (gs.com) address in the name of Michael Bruun as the contact for Volta Investments, SLP, HECS Emp Onshore Investments, L.P. and West Street Capital Partners VII - Parallel, SLP, and a Goldman Sachs address in the name of Sébastien Gagnon, alongside a second Goldman Sachs address, as a contact for West Street Capital Partners VII Investments, L.P., West Street Capital Partners VIII, L.P. and further West Street, WSCP VIII, HECS, Horizon Environment & Climate Solutions and Special Situations 2022 entities. Both have sat on Northvolt AB's board, with tenures recorded under differing dates in the annual reports and the company register. The list gives contact addresses only; it does not state the holdings of these entities or the capacity in which the named persons act for them. [src-076] [src-004] ## The dgCON motion, the dismissal and the case left open - Analysis: A motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction was filed in the chapter 11 cases in the name of the creditor dgCON (Docket No. 529). The motion itself is not among the inspected records; its content is known only from the debtors' initial objection of 19 March 2025 (Document 585). There the debtors argued that the motion was procedurally deficient, lacking a certificate of service, a proposed order and licensed counsel for an artificial entity, and noted that the person who submitted it did not explain their authority to act for dgCON. In substance, they said, it sought payment of dgCON's prepetition claim, which the debtors had scheduled as a non-priority unsecured claim against Northvolt AB and which the automatic stay barred them from paying without court approval. The dismissal order of 1 April 2025 declared all other pending motions in the chapter 11 cases moot. [src-114] [src-075] - Analysis: In the same objection the debtors noted that they had recently announced the commencement of a Swedish bankruptcy liquidation and that parties might coalesce around a motion to dismiss the chapter 11 cases. By order signed on 1 April 2025 (Document 593), United States Bankruptcy Judge Alfredo R. Pérez dismissed, under sections 305(a) and 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, the chapter 11 cases of Northvolt AB (No. 24-90577), Cuberg, Inc. (24-90578), Northvolt Ett AB (24-90579), Northvolt Ett Fastighetsförvaltning AB (24-90580), Northvolt Labs AB (24-90581), Northvolt Poland sp. z o.o. (24-90582), Northvolt Revolt AB (24-90583) and Northvolt Systems AB (24-90584), and dissolved the official committee of unsecured creditors except for limited purposes. A machine-generated summary of Northvolt Poland's financial statements by a Polish business-information service describes the procedure as ended on 1 April 2025 without a successful restructuring. The same order kept open the case of NV Texas, LLC (No. 24-90576), formerly jointly administered under the Northvolt AB lead case, until a notice of dismissal was filed once the debtors had paid the quarterly US Trustee fees, transferred the carve-out reserve for professional fees to an escrow account, and all professionals had filed final fee applications by 1 May 2025 and orders had been entered on them; upon that notice the remaining case was to be dismissed. The inspected records do not include the notice of dismissal or its date. [src-075] [src-074] [src-114] ## Sources - [src-053] Court record source · src-053 - [src-074] Court record source · src-074 - [src-076] Court record source · src-076 - [src-005] Media source · src-005 - [src-075] Court record source · src-075 - [src-110] Court record source · src-110 - [src-052] Media source · src-052 - [src-004] Corporate registry source · src-004 - [src-114] Court record source · src-114