Freshfields Advises Li-Cycle on its $475 Million Project Financing with the U.S. Department of Energy for the Development of the Rochester Hub Project

Freshfields represented Li-Cycle Holdings Corp (“Li-Cycle”), an industry leader in lithium-ion battery resource recovery and lithium-ion battery recycling in North America, in entering into a $475 million loan facility to be granted to Li-Cycle U.S. Inc. by the Federal Financing Bank and arranged under the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) Loan Programs Office’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program (“ATVM”).

This is the first DOE ATVM loan facility to be finalized for a lithium-ion battery materials recycling company, which demonstrates Li-Cycle’s important role in the U.S. battery materials supply chain, as a domestic supplier of recycled critical battery materials. The DOE loan will fund the development of Li-Cycle’s flagship Rochester Hub project, located in upstate New York. Key features of the DOE loan facility can be found here.

Freshfields also represented Li-Cycle in its de-SPAC transaction, which closed in August 2021 and raised $580 million to support the company’s expansion, and subsequently on its issuance of a $100 million convertible note to Koch Strategic Platforms, LLC, its issuance of $50 million of common stock in the aggregate to LG Energy Solution, Ltd. and LG Chem, Ltd and on its strategic partnership with Glencore.

The Freshfields team on the DOE financing was led by partner Melissa Raciti-Knapp and associates Luis Salomón, Nora McDonnell, Jordan Phelan and Zade Mutwalli, with partners Stephanie Brown Cripps, Claude B. Stansbury, Lori Goodman and Mena Kaplan providing subject matter advice and partners Paul Tiger, Andrea Basham and Allison Liff consulting along the way.  The Freshfields team also included associates Andrew Bulovsky, Jessica Berman, Lina Zhu, Marissa Yu and Allison Caramico.