Time running out for Magnis Energy Technologies to provide details on New York battery factory revenue

Magnis Energy Technologies has just days left to reveal ‘money will be flowing through the door’ from its flagship New York battery factory.

Magnis Energy Technologies chairman Frank Poullas. Picture: Britta Campion

Magnis Energy Technologies has just days left to reveal “money will be flowing through the door” from its flagship New York battery factory.

Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting on November 24, Magnis chairman Frank Poullas told investors the company’s battery production facility in the upstate New York town of Endicott was stockpiling cells and close to generating revenue “some time in December”.

Mr Poullas said although sales had not yet been made, Magnis customers were keen to receive the cells pending certification of the technology.

“We would expect as soon as we get certification, some time in December, we will see revenue coming in,” Mr Poullas told investors. “There’s no shortage of customers right now.”

With the end of the year only days away, Magnis has not revealed to investors any news regarding sales or revenues, with Magnis chief executive David Taylor on leave from December 26 until early January.

However, Magnis did tell investors on December 22 that it had appointed Jones Lang LaSalle, Americas to advise it on ­securing a site in the US to produce battery anode material.

Magnis said it had also placed orders for “key long lead time equipment” with Hosokawa Alpine Aktiengesellschaft, with Mr Taylor noting the company needed to consider “multiple factors” when securing a new production site.

“The placement of key equipment orders for our demonstration plant is a major step forward, and we are now looking forward to working in collaboration with our technology partner C4V to advance the project into the delivery phase,” he said.

These plans come on top of almost $US36.6m ($54.1m) invested by Magnis into the iM3NY site in recent years.

Magnis has claimed the factory would deliver huge returns, with revenues topping $80m in 2022, climbing to $360m in 2023, before soaring to $1.8bn by 2027.

The company told investors in May 2021 iM3NY had signed orders worth at least $US665m ($953m), with plans to lift production to 1.8GW a year.

Semi-automated production began at iM3NY in December last year. Fully automated production was due in the first half of 2022, but after a string of delays did not start until August 12.

Production was projected to increase from an initial run of “several thousand cells” in September, to 15,000 cells each day.

“With previously announced binding sales agreements, I look forward to updating the market as we move towards generating revenues,” Mr Poullas said at the time.

iM3NY is also looking at resolving its $100m loan, backed by the intellectual property of iM3NY, which falls due in April 2024.

If iM3NY were to default on the loan, the company’s battery technology intellectual property could be forfeited.

Mr Poullas has made repeated promises about the potential of Magnis’s US battery assets.

In January, Mr Poullas told the ASX Investor channel: “Within six months there will be revenues coming through for (the New York factory).”

However, these claims have not gone without question, with the ASX repeatedly querying ­assumptions, including forcing Magnis to retract claims it was worth as much as $10bn.

In October 2021, the ASX questioned Magnis’s revenue claims.

Magnis told the ASX $US243m of the almost $US655m in offtake deals signed for iM3NY factory would be snapped up by Indian-based Sukh Energy, which The Australian has revealed lacks revenues and had no expenses.

Mr Poullas has also faced questioning by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, which raided his home in September 2021 and seized documents.

The Australian has revealed ASIC ordered Mr Poullas to hand over documents relating to his purchase of shares valued at $47,800 as well as papers detailing Magnis’s dealings with Dubai-based financiers the Negma Group.

Letters sent to Magnis by senior ASIC officials in September, obtained by The Australian, show the corporate regulator was investigating allegations of contraventions of Corporations Act pro­visions relating to market manip­ulation and the false trading of shares.

A Magnis spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on the company’s battery factory, but told The Australian ASIC had “concluded its investigation and has determined not to take any enforcement action”. However, ASIC could not confirm it had dropped its investigation.

Mr Poullas has previously played down reports about ASIC’s investigation, telling investors at Magnis’s 2021 AGM the regulator was looking at “some share trades”.

But no mention was made of ASIC’s ongoing investigation at Magnis’s 2022 AGM, despite Mr Poullas making a formal complaint to ASIC regarding the handling of the investigation.

A freedom of information request confirmed that ASIC’s Professional Standards Unit had received a complaint from Mr Poullas, “for the purposes of an ASIC investigation that is currently ongoing”.

“This chronology contains ­information forming part of ASIC’s conduct of an investi­gation into a complaint currently being handled by the PSU,” ASIC senior lawyer Haydar Tuncer said. “This investigation is ongoing. 

“The information in the chronology was collected for the purpose of dealing with a complaint pursuant to ASIC’s complaint handling process, which may inform the conduct and direction of ASIC’s ongoing enquiries.”