Attero Recycling to invest $1 billion for global expansion

India’s largest electronic waste recycling company Attero Recycling on Tuesday announced its plans to invest $1 billion globally over the next five years.  

As part of this global expansion, the firm that also recycles batteries will set up plants in the US, Poland and Indonesia, along with scaling up its India operations. 

Through this investment, Attero aims to recycle more than 3,00,000 tonne of lithium-ion battery waste per year by 2027 in its facilities spread across Europe, US, India and Indonesia. 

In a statement, the company said that its expansion plan will be rolled out in a phased manner. In the first phase, Attero will invest $500 million to scale its lithium ion battery recycling capacity to 1,50,000 tonne by 2025. The European facility will be functional by the fourth quarter of 2022, while the facility in Ohia, US will be operational by the third quarter of 2023.  

The factory in Indonesia is slated to be functional by the first quarter of 2024. “This capacity expansion will enable Attero to become a global leader in fulfilling Green Metal demand and meet over 15% of the world’s demand for cobalt, lithium, graphite, nickel, amongst others. In tandem with its plans to expand overseas, Attero will continue to ramp up its India operations,” it said. 

In the second phase, in a bid to reach its target of 3,00,000 tonne of lithium ion battery waste per year by 2027, Attero will infuse an additional $500 million. This additional capex will be used to enhance the capacity by 1,50,000 tonne through its facilities across the globe. 

On the scaling up of operations in India, Nitin Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, Attero Recycling said that the company is in the process of attaining 11,000 tonne capacity in India and over the next few years the company will scale it up to 50,000 tonne. 

“The first plant in Europe is coming up in Poland. The first plant in the US is coming up in Ohio, in India we are scaling up the plant in south India. The first plant will be in Indonesia as well and then we will scale up the capacities in each of these plants multifold over the next five years,” he said. 

He said that around 35% of the total investment of $1 billion would be done in Europe, 35% in the US, around 20% in India, 10% in Indonesia and. 

Talking of the source of capital for the investment, he said that about 50% of the investment would come from internal accruals, about 32% would come from debt and 18% would come from equity. 

“There is an increased focus on electric vehicles, which has resulted in an increased demand for lithium ion battery recycling. By 2030, 2.5 million tons of lithium-ion batteries will have reached end-of-life,” he said. 

The company aims to hire over 100 people by the end of 2022, with plans to increase the number to 200 by the end of 2023. 

Founded in 2008, by Rohan Gupta and Nitin Gupta, Attero is backed by the International Finance Corporation and Kalaari Capital among others.