Ascend Elements Bankruptcy Update: The Poland Assets and the IP Portfolio Have Been Sold.
A new filing dropped this morning on the Ascend Elements’ bankruptcy. A newly formed entity managed and controlled by KinTerra Capital Corp was designated the successful bidder.
They picked up the full IP portfolio, the patents, and all developed processes. The purchase price was $3 million in cash plus a credit bid tied to the CLN obligations, meaning the noteholders under both the Senior Secured Convertible Note and the Subordinated Secured Convertible Note used their debt as part of the consideration.
The auction itself bounced around several times. Originally scheduled for May 12, then pushed to May 13, then moved to a TBD date before ultimately being cancelled altogether once KinTerra was named the successful bidder. No competing bids, no auction was held.
Also included in the sale were equity interests giving the buyer indirect control of roughly 44 to 45 hectares of land in Opole, Poland, within the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone, pending approval by the Polish government.
The filing explicitly states that none of the acquired assets were developed with DOE funding and that the DOE holds no reversionary interest in any of them. That is a very specific inclusion, and it was added to preempt any potential federal challenge.
The filing also includes that the debtors are not seeking approval of any sale transaction concerning the assets in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. None of the US based tangible assets were included in this sale. It is the Kentucky site APEX 1 where construction liens and secured debt sit, and it may be the focus of the motion by a couple of creditors to convert the proceedings from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7.
The one U.S. based asset that may continue is APEX 0 in Georgia, which was not listed in the new filing. It has no ties to DOE funding and, as far as I know, no liens attached to it. That operation may also continue as a separate entity from the Polish side, which was originally structured as a joint venture. The process used in Georgia is their black mass production platform, which includes the in-house developed early-stage lithium recovery component.
This sale effectively removes the IP portfolio from the bankruptcy proceedings. The platform used in Georgia was invented by CTO Eric Gratz, while the Hydro-to-Cathode process, developed by founder Dr. Yan Wang and originally intended for deployment in Kentucky and Poland, is now fully outside the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings and can be deployed in Poland.
The company will likely continue, just not in the form we know it. I would be disheartened, however, if all U.S. operations end up shutting down. The need for lithium-ion battery recycling has never been greater than it is right now, and losing domestic capacity at this moment would be a real blow to the industry.
We have already lost so much lithium-ion recycling capacity in the U.S. with failed companies and Redwood pivoting to cascade utilization due to the inability to produce battery grade. If the current trajectory continues under the Trump administration, where battery metals are increasingly being used as leverage in critical material trade negotiations, U.S. cell manufacturers may stay dependent on imports for battery metals until primary projects come online in the next decade. Which brings into question their viability due to not being able to compete with China’s much lower costs even with tariffs.
One final note: I have seen motions filed by both American Battery Technology Company and Princeton NuEnergy requesting access to all case documents and to be kept in the loop on the proceedings. Neither has filed anything tied to bidding yet, but that could change if this moves toward liquidation. If there are additional assets outside of facility-based engineering components, such as equipment, there may not be that much unless Georgia is rolled into the liquidation.
But if that is the case, the equipment sales could get complicated since it is part of a patented protected process, which as stated above is now out of the bankruptcy proceedings. There could be deals on granulators and other generic stuff that has been in use for some time and greatly depreciated, but that could be exactly what those two companies are waiting for, garage sale discounts.
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DISCLAIMER: This article should not be construed as an offering of investment advice, nor should any statements (by the author or by other persons and/or entities that the author has included) in this article be taken as investment advice or recommendations of any investment strategy. The information in this article is for educational purposes only. The author did not receive compensation, from any of the companies and or persons mentioned to be included in the article.