The battery company Freyr has been in rough weather lately. While the company’s owners and managers have made good money from favorable share sales and bonuses, things are going worse for the company itself. Earlier in November, it became clear that the company is halting the construction of a “gigafactory” that was supposed to produce batteries of industrial size. This is because Freyr wants to halve expenses in Norway. On Monday, Freyr boss Birger Steen delivered even more bad news in Rana: 10 employees will lose their jobs. – We have communicated that we are going to reduce the use of cash in the company by more than 50 per cent, says Steen to news in Mo i Rana. Freyr CEO Birger Steen was in Mo i Rana on Monday. Here, ten employees were told that their jobs would disappear. Photo: Frank Nygård / news At the same time, more jobs are being moved to Rana from other places. – So the effect here in Rana will be relatively small, says Steen. In total, there are 78 people who must join the company. – Most of the positions that have disappeared are at our head office at Lysaker in Oslo, he says. Even Freyr CEO Steen does not know what will happen to the huge NOK 2.8 billion industrial building that has already been built. – We are now completing that building these days, and we will keep it warm at 12 degrees Celsius. If and when the conditions are right for that, we will start battery production there again. Cutting the number of directors At the same time that Freyr is slimming down the work staff at Rana, they are also slimming down the top management. The company writes this in a stock exchange announcement on Monday. The company has until now had 19 directors, but after today’s reshuffles the number is down to 6. Helgelands Blad wrote about the director cut first. The former head of Folketrygdfonnet, Olaug Svarva, is also leaving the board. – This was the right time for me to resign from Freyr’s board. I wish Freyr and the management all the best in their work to create a cleaner and more sustainable battery value chain, she says in the press release. TU editor: The entire battery investment under pressure In a comment entitled “Bye bye batteries”, editor of Teknisk ukeblad, Jan M. Moberg, writes about the status of the Norwegian battery adventures – and especially the situation that Freyr is in. “The result is that a gigantic factory building i Mo i Rana is empty and will probably have to be used for completely different things. In addition, a large part of the employees who were recruited for the venture in the north must be made redundant. It appears as a complete collapse at the 66th latitude.” In front of news, Moberg elaborates. – The entire battery investment in Europe is under pressure from the American Inflation Reduction Act – so it’s not just in Norway. Jan M. Moberg is responsible editor of Teknisk ukeblad. Photo: Teknisk ukeblad He describes the lucrative support scheme as a vacuum cleaner for green industrial projects, and sucks these to North America. In addition, Norway is about to miss out on one of its great advantages: access to abundant and cheap renewable energy. – We no longer have a power advantage, because there is too little of that either, says Moberg. Bonus party and share fall Several media outlets, including Dagens Næringsliv, have written about how the Freyr executives and founders have earned fat share sales and bonuses – and that before a single battery has been produced. – Of course, it doesn’t get any better that Freyr has had these share price jumps, high salaries and bonuses. That doesn’t make it any easier to get credible money then, says Moberg. When the quarterly report for Q3 was published on 9 November, the share price plunged. A year ago, a share was valued at NOK 156. It is now down to NOK 17. That’s a drop in value of 89 percent. – The question now is whether the train has left. Even if the top executives promise to buy shares in the company again, the question is whether the train has not left, says Moberg.
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Freyr cuts 78 employees – ten of them in Mo i Rana – news Nordland
