Lithium-ion battery developer Novonix has suffered more red ink but has got a $5 million fill up

A Brisbane firm developing lithium-ion batteries has continued losing money but just got a fill up thanks to the nation’s biggest energy fund and loans from directors.

BATTERY POWERED

It might be the future but the brave new world of eco-friendly energy won’t come cheap.

For evidence of this look no further than two of the Brisbane companies which are currently being propped up largely by the St Baker Energy Innovation Fund, the piggy bank controlled by mega-wealthy energy kingpin Trevor St Baker.

The fund, the largest of its kind in Australia, is a key backer allowing both electric car charging outfit Tritium and lithium-ion battery developer Novonix to stay afloat as they burn through huge piles of cash in a bid to reach critical mass.

Novonix, chaired by Tony Bellas, revealed on Friday hat it had suffered a net loss of just over $7 million during the half-year to December. That’s well above the $5.1 million loss in the same period last year.

With cash on hand dwindling to just $560,058 and current liabilities of $4.25 million, the company also has nearly $6 million in loan notes set to mature in August.

Novonix chairman Tony Bellas

The precarious nature of this unsustainable situation was enough for auditors to warn of the “material uncertainty’’ looming over the company’s ability to survive.

To neutralise this threat, Novonix also announced yesterday that both the St Baker fund and loans from company directors would inject a fresh $5 million in to its till for working capital and the expansion of manufacturing efforts in the US.

Specifically, the fund has tipped in an unsecured $3.4 million chunk of cash.

Additional unsecured short-term loans totalling nearly $3.15 million have arrived in the coffers, with MD Philip St Baker (Trevor’s son) kicking in $1.75 million.

Non-executive director Andrew Liveris, the ex-Dow Chemical boss and a former brother-in-law to Bellas, has opened his wallet to the tune of $934,000.

The need for the folding stuff is so great that $1.5 million of these loans have already been drawn down and the latest efforts follow a separate $1.26 million capital raising recently.

Novonix, which has already struck deals with electronics giants Samsung and Sanyo, is pinning its hopes on a forecast tripling of the value of the global lithium-ion battery market to $US110 billion by 2026.

MEXICAN STANDOFF

Well amigo, you might say the Mexican stand-off has been resolved.

Brisbane-based Collins Foods Group, which operates most of the nation’s network of KFC outlets, announced yesterday that it had settled a legal dispute with Victorian outfit Taco Bill Mexican Restaurants Australia.

Taco Bill launched Federal Court proceeding in November alleging that Collins had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in its effort to open similarly-named Taco Bell eateries in Victoria.

Collins boss Graham Maxwell divulged very few details of the settlement beyond saying that his group “will continue to own and operate Taco Bell restaurants in Victoria’’.

Customers at the opening of East Ipswich Taco Bell.

It’s not the first time the two camps have clashed. They first sparred when the US-based owners of Taco Bell made an ill-fated attempt to crack the Australian market back in the 1980s.

A spin doctor for Taco Bill, which has built up a network of 30 stores since launching in 1967, declined to comment yesterday.

Collins has bought the franchising rights to the trading name Taco Bell for Queensland, Victoria and WA, while a Kiwi group has the rights for NSW and the ACT.

The growth of fast-food competitors such as Guzman y Gomez and Zambrero has prompted Collins to unveil plans to open more than 100 Taco Bell stores in the next five years. There are currently 10 in Queensland.

LACK OF PAY

Hardly a day goes by without another company sheepishly admitting it has underpaid workers. Oddly enough, they never seem to overpay!

The drumbeat continued this week when the Fair Work Ombudsman revealed it had clawed back $1.32 million for dudded staff at 1217 businesses across the nation.

The audit, launched in 2018, found that fast food joints, restaurants and cafes were the least compliant of the lot.