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By Gilles Guillaume
PARIS, May 11 (Reuters) - Battery maker ProLogium aims
to put down roots outside of its home of Taiwan with a major new
investment in France and wants to float on the stock market to
help fund its expansion, executives said.
The privately held car battery maker will invest 5.2 billion
euros ($5.7 billion) by 2030 in a new gigafactory in the
northern French port city of Dunkirk, its first outside of
Taiwan and its biggest, the company announced on Thursday.
With Taiwan a focal point in tensions between Washington and
Beijing, the company aims to set up a base overseas to ensure it
can maintain operations over the long-term.
"Because of political issues, our board does not want to
enlarge too much capacity there (in Taiwan)," founder and Chief
Executive Vincent Yang told journalists as he announced the
investment in France.
"We are not a Taiwanese company anymore," he added.
The company is lining up loans and equity to finance the
French plant as well as financial incentives from the French
government, the region and city of Dunkirk as well as possible
EU funds.
Meanwhile, German carmaker Mercedes Benz Group AG and Vietnamese group Vinfast have taken stakes in the
company and clients testing its technology were welcome to do
the same, Executive Vice-President Gilles Normand said.
"We want to go to an IPO, depending on market conditions" in
parallel to the fundraising process for the Dunkirk plant, Yang
said.
The French investment is about more than just building an
overseas production hub as ProLogium is also setting up
facilities outside Taiwan for procuring materials as well as
research and development activities, Normand said.
"We are really replicating the company from Taiwan, from its
initial city, it is a partial transfer to Europe," he added.
The French plant, which is due to begin operating by the end
of 2026 and reach mass production the following year, will in
particular produce new solid-state batteries offering what the
company says are big advantages over lithium-ion batteries
currently used in most electric cars.
The company, which has 600 patents on the technology and
six carmakers testing it, says that they will be safer for
consumers, simpler to manufacture, offer more storage capacity
and better recyclability as well as charge faster.
"We think our technology is now ready for mass production
before the beginning of the next decade, when everybody is
waiting for solid state not to happen before 2030," Normand
said.
($1 = 0.9084 euro)
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume in Paris
Writing by Leigh Thomas
Editing by Matthew Lewis)
