More trouble for embattled hydrogen truck maker Hyzon as European partner seeks to exit joint venture
Dutch family business Holthausen wants to sell its 49.5% stake in Hyzon Motors Europe back to the US manufacturer, which has been threatened with delisting by Nasdaq after financial irregularities
US hydrogen truck maker Hyzon Motors — which has been threatened with delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange after failing to file financial results for the past two quarters, is now facing another significant challenge — after it emerged that its partner in Hyzon Motors Europe (HME) is seeking to exit the joint venture.
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Jacques Fiers, chief executive of HME, which is based in Winschoten, northeast Netherlands, told regional broadcaster RTV Noord on Wednesday: “Holthausen is a family business, with a family culture. Hyzon is listed on the stock exchange, which entails a completely different way of working, according to fixed structures and much more formal. There was no happy match made between the two companies.”
HME’s manufacturing facility in Winschoten has been struggling the past year. In 2021, Hyzon Motors announced that it was Hyzon’s largest facility, and that it would have an annual manufacturing capacity of 1,000 trucks in 2022.
It is not clear, however, how many trucks have actually been delivered by the joint venture, which was set up in the summer of 2020.
According to RTV Noord, the facility has been struggling with a lack of personnel, supply-chain problems and Covid-related issues.
In a Hyzon Motors filing to US financial authorities in August, the US company said it would restructure its European operations and hire consultants to assist management after finding “operational inefficiencies” at Winschoten, which was deemed to have a “material adverse effect” on Hyzon’s “ability to produce and sell vehicles”.
Other Hyzon Motors filings to US authorities indicate that negotiations between the two partners have been difficult for a while.
In May 2022, Hyzon announced it was buying half of Holthausen’s shares in HME for €27m ($28m). And in October, Hyzon filed an update saying the parties had been unable to reach an agreement, and that they were now negotiating a sale of all of Holthausen’s shares.
The share price of Hyzon Motors had by then fallen roughly 50% in five months, and it declared that a purchase of Holthausen’s shares must be agreed by 31 January 2023 — otherwise Holthausen would have to pay back to Hyzon Motors an advance payment of €2m.
Hyzon’s share price has been falling since March 2021 after a report from professional short seller outlet Blue Orca Capital made a number of serious accusations against the company — including that its biggest customer, Shanghai HongYun, was a “fake-looking Chinese shell entity”, and that Hyzon was in fact a repackaged 17-year-old Chinese company called Horizon that had been struggling with decreasing fuel-cell sales.
Hyzon Motors refuted the allegations, but the US Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the company in January this year.
Holthausen Clean Technology is planning to continue with the family business of converting vehicles such as trucks, vans, garbage trucks and street cleaners to run on hydrogen.
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