US battery company Lyten has been selected as preferred bidder for the business of bankrupt Norwegian cell manufacturer Morrow Batteries.
The bankruptcy estates of Morrow Batteries, Morrow Technologies and Morrow Industrialization Center signed a memorandum of understanding with Lyten and secured creditor Innovation Norway on 21 August.
The proposal is structured as an asset sale intended to preserve Morrow as a going concern. However, it remains subject to conditions outside the administrators’ control and the negotiation of final transaction documents. Financial terms and the conditions attached to the memorandum have not been disclosed.
Morrow’s three companies entered bankruptcy proceedings on 6 May after the group failed to secure an industrial investor and additional financing before exhausting its available liquidity.
The company had opened a 1GWh lithium iron phosphate cell factory in Arendal in August 2024, designed to produce up to three million prismatic cells annually. It subsequently began commercial deliveries to Finnish industrial technology company Proventia and secured its first defence-sector order shortly before its collapse.
Morrow was developing high-voltage LNMO-X cells
Morrow was also developing high-voltage lithium nickel manganese oxide, or LNMO-X, cells at its research and industrialisation facilities.
Court-appointed administrator Christian Bohne said several parties had participated in the sale process, but Lyten’s proposal offered the preferred route for preserving the operation.
“In the short term, this process secures around 70 jobs through the autumn,” he said. “In a longer-term perspective, the objective is for the process to contribute to securing several hundred jobs at Morrow, as well as assignments for local suppliers of materials and services.”
Bohne cautioned that completion was not assured, although he said he was optimistic about Lyten’s ability to execute the transaction.
Lyten is evaluating the Arendal operation as a possible “industrial hub” combining battery manufacturing with upstream and downstream activities. It has also suggested that the site could support data centres, mobility, defence and other industrial sectors.
The company has not said whether it intends to continue producing Morrow’s existing LFP cells, develop the LNMO-X technology or introduce its own lithium-sulphur and nickel manganese cobalt products at the site.
Lyten CEO and co-founder Dan Cook said: “Europe has entered a sustained period of infrastructure investment, and batteries are now an important part of this critical infrastructure. Lyten is committed to building a financially strong and scalable manufacturing base for batteries and energy storage in Europe, utilising US and European technology, supply chains and manufacturing sites.”
The proposed purchase would add another formerly insolvent European battery business to Lyten’s rapidly expanding portfolio.
In February, it completed the acquisition of Northvolt Ett and its expansion site in Skellefteå, together with Northvolt Labs in Västerås. Those Swedish assets include 16GWh of installed cell manufacturing capacity and extensive battery research facilities.
Lyten had previously acquired Northvolt’s energy storage system factory in Gdańsk, Poland, and is working towards acquiring the Northvolt Drei site in Heide, Germany.
Morrow attributed its bankruptcy to the capital demands and delays associated with industrialisation, combined with global battery oversupply, price competition and increasingly restrained investment markets.
Before its collapse, shareholders including Å Energi, ABB, Siemens Financial Services, Maj Invest and Norwegian state-owned Nysnø had invested approximately NOK3.3 billion ($330 million) in equity. The company had also received public loans, guarantees and grants.
Innovation Norway said Lyten’s proposal provided the strongest combination of financial recovery, transaction certainty and industrial credibility among the bids received.
