Latest News

Li-Cycle to cut 17% of personnel amid battery recycling growing discomforts

Battery recycler LiCycle plans to lay off 17% of its staff consisting of three senior executives as it pares its enthusiastic international growth strategies in order to save cash and concentrate on developing a crucial processing center in New York.

The cuts, announced on Tuesday, are a tacit recognition by the Toronto-based company that its rapid development in current years - with centers announced throughout The United States and Canada, Europe and Asia - was unsustainable provided the high costs and technical difficulties related to constructing what is basically a new worldwide market for electrical automobile battery recycling.

In all, 60 workers will lose their jobs. The business was still notifying afflicted personnel about the cuts on Tuesday afternoon.

Li-Cycle, which plans to tape-record an $8.3 million severance charge this quarter, will have approximately 200 employees after the cuts.

While Li-Cycle published its highest quarterly profits ever during 2023, the business has actually dealt with building expense overruns at its Rochester, New york city, battery processing center. The U.S. Energy Department said last year that it would conditionally provide the business $375 million for that facility, however expense price quotes have actually nearly doubled to $960. million.

That enormous expense overrun - in addition to technical. intricacies of recycling technology the company planned to utilize. - had hammered Li-Cycle's stock and required it to seek a cash. infusion from Glencore. The mining giant previously this. If, month announced a $75 million convertible loan that. exercised, would make it the largest investor of the New. York-listed company.

The Rochester facility is central to the business's. hub-and-spoke model, in which multiple collection and. processing facilities shred batteries into so-called black mass,. which then will be separated at the center into lithium and. other metals once it is functional.

Li-Cycle had actually spoken about developing comparable centers in Europe,. but those plans are on hold until it can prove the design works. in North America.

We have actually got to get the Rochester center operational, Ajay. Kochhar, Li-Cycle's co-founder and CEO, told .

As part of the layoffs, Li-Cycle's co-founder and executive. chairman, Tim Johnston, will relinquish his management role,. He will remain on the business's board. Johnston and. Kochhar had basically run the business together, although the. reorganization will see Johnston stepping back.

The executive in charge of the business's worldwide. operations will leave, as will the company's financing chief.

Li-Cycle is among a variety of business, consisting of. privately held Redwood Materials, considering development in the recycling. organization.

Miners have actually also shown interest in the sector as customers. and regulators significantly promote for the circular economy in. which products and minerals are reused in a constant. producing loop.

(source: Reuters)