Think, the Norwegian electric vehicle
(EV) manufacturer announces today that the Norwegian courts have
approved its debt settlement plan, enabling the company to exit
court protection.
Effectively, this puts Think back in business and in a position to
resume normal operations in terms of the manufacture and sale of new
electric vehicles (EVs), namely, its latest TH!NK City model.
Think CEO Richard Canny said: “This
court ruling completes the final step in our return to normal
operations. It is an important day for Think, and we would like to
thank our creditors and suppliers for their continued support, and
to show our appreciation to Think’s very patient and loyal customers
– this means we can re-start production of the TH!NK City as soon as
possible.”
The TH!NK City is the company’s
latest generation EV, and is one of the few ready-to-market fully
electric vehicles available in the world today. With its
market-leading 180km range, class-leading 100km/h performance and
safety attributes, the TH!NK City is the first vehicle of its type
to be granted pan-European regulatory safety approval and CE
certification.
A significant capital increase has
also been arranged to enable the company to immediately get back to
the business of producing and selling EVs. The company continues to
be backed by a very loyal group of investors, made up of some
individual Norwegian investors as well as leading venture capital
and clean-tech investment firms from the USA and the UK.
In addition, some new investors
have joined the shareholder group as part of the capital increase,
which is worth some $47 million in total capital introduced and
conversion of interim financing to equity. The equity transaction
is scheduled to close next week.
Richard Canny added: “With this
group of shareholders offering the financial backing and support
needed to get Think back into production, we are very excited about
what the future holds for this company. We’d like to thank our
existing investors for their continued support, and also to welcome
the new investors on board.
He concluded: “Establishing
production in Finland and expanding our sales organisation around
Europe is going to keep us extremely busy in the coming months – but
we are very confident, the TH!NK City is literally ready for sale
and we look forward to delivering the first of our customers’ new
cars this side of 2010.”
