Northvolt to wind down battery making in Sweden by the end of June

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish automotive battery maker Northvolt, which declared bankruptcy in March, plans to wind down its remaining battery cell production in the Nordic country by the end of June, its trustee said on Thursday.

Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in Sweden on March 12, making it one of the country's largest corporate failures and effectively ending Europe's best hope of developing a rival to challenge China.

While the search for a buyer of the Swedish battery cell making business continued, there was no realistic prospect for a purchaser to assume control in the near term, bankruptcy trustee Mikael Kubu said in a statement on Thursday.

"A gradual wind-down of battery cell production in Northvolt Ett will be initiated, with the objective of ceasing production by 30 June," Kubu said, referring to the company's plant in the Swedish town of Skelleftea, its main business.

At the same time, there are interested parties and potential buyers for various business operations within the Northvolt group, and negotiations are ongoing at varying stages of progress, the bankruptcy trustee added.

Northvolt said at the time of the March filing that its plant in northern Sweden would continue to run in the short term. It later received financial guarantees from key stakeholders to maintain a scaled-down continuation of its operations.

The EV battery maker initially sought U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November as its cash pile dwindled and it scrambled to secure funds, but it eventually failed to raise the cash needed.

(Reporting by Marie Mannes; Writing by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Anna Ringstrom and Jan Harvey)