<http://www.dealcurry.com/20100914-Electrotherm-Plans-To-Acquire-US-Based-Bankrupt-Firm-Firefly-Energy.htm>
*Electrotherm India Limited (EIL)* is planning to acquire Illinois based lead acid battery manufacturer *Firefly Energy Inc *which filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in March. The Firefly deal will help Electrotherm to enter into the US-EU markets. Firefly has a loan of over $6 Mn with *PNC Bank*. *Peoria City* and *County *are the guarantors for the loan who are now moving forward with an agreement to allow Electrotherm to buy Firefly’s assets including its patents for batteries. Transaction Note Founded in 2003 by *Ed Williams* and *Mil Ovan*, Firefly Energy had developed a carbon graphite foam lead-acid battery that can be used in the military and trucking industry. It was difficult for Firefly to compete where Firefly's battery cost about $450 a piece as compared to average battery cost of $146. It faced a market where prices dropped by 30-40%. The company received another blow when it was unable to procure any of the $2 billion in stimulus funds the federal government awarded for battery research last year. EIL owns the popular electric scooter brand ‘*Yobykes*’. Last year, Electrotherm had developed the alpha-weaver technology based batteries that now power its electric scooters. Earlier, Electrotherm used to import around 100,000 batteries packs from China. The ‘alpha-weaver’ battery, as against the lead-acid batteries increase the travel range of the electric bikes from 70 kilometers(km) for a single charge to over 105 km, at the same time bringing down the charging time from eight to four hours. These batteries are also lighter by six kilograms compared to conventional batteries, EIL claimed. EIL has sold over 75,000 scooters since its launch in February 2006. It has a manufacturing facility in Kutch with a capacity of 2,88,000 vehicles per annum and sold around 20,000 scooters in 2009-10. If this deal goes through, it would be Electrotherm's third acquisition this year, after the acquisition of *Hans Ispat Pvt Ltd* and its subsidiary *Shree Hans Paper Ltd* for Rs 60 crore ($13.3mn) and *Shree Ram Electrocast Pvt Ltd * for $19.11 Mn. -- Regards Hardik Shah -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en.
