Varta to spin off EV subsidiary

The battery manufacturer Varta, which presented its new battery cell V4Drive for electric vehicles last year, has founded a new subsidiary for e-mobility, according to a media report. At the end of March, Varta wants to give details about the new subsidiary.

According to information from the German news medium Welt am Sonntag, the new public limited company Pertrix V SE was recently founded as a Varta subsidiary. The business purpose is primarily the acquisition and management of “company investments in the field of electromobility”. Varta had sold its battery business for combustion vehicles 20 years ago, but approached the vehicle business again with the introduction of the V4Drive cell – just with a focus on the much more attractive electric car battery business.

When asked, a spokesperson explained that it was still a “shelf company with no operating business”. Only on 31 March would Varta provide information on further developments in connection with the presentation of the business figures.

After presenting the V4Drive in April 2021 as a kind of booster for performance vehicles, Varta had indicated in October that it would also build the V4Drive in a larger format than the 2170 cell confirmed so far, so that it could be used in battery-electric cars. Series production of up to two GWh per year is expected to start in 2022/2023.

So far, Varta had not indicated – even at the Capital Markets Day in October – that a separate SE (European public limited company) would be set up for the EV business. What exactly Varta plans to do with the “shelf company” based in Ellwangen is not known. The first customer orders – Porsche is confirmed – have already been placed for the V4Drive cell. So the still empty subsidiary could soon have an important and real task.

Incidentally, the name Pertrix V is an allusion to the company’s own past: the origin of today’s Varta Group lies in AFA, which was founded in 1887. In 1926, AFA took over the Hamburg-based Pertrix Chemische Fabrik Aktiengesellschaft.

welt.de (in German)