FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - New bad news from Varta shocked the already long-suffering investors in the battery company on Friday. Varta no longer considers its own restructuring concept to be sufficient and is once again calling on its lenders for help. The measures are no longer adequate to return to a profitable growth path by the end of 2026, Varta had previously announced. As a result, the share price plummeted to a record low of 9.30 euros. Most recently, the shares were at the bottom of the second-line index SDax, down a good 30 percent to 9.71 euros.

The stock exchange service Stock3 reported that the Varta share had not only run out of juice, but that the battery had also leaked and affected the device. "The rescue could be extremely painful for existing shareholders. Even low single-digit share prices should no longer come as a surprise."

Varta went public in the fall of 2017. The issue price at the time was €17.50 per share. What followed was an upward trend - albeit not without jolts - to more than 180 euros at the beginning of 2021. The steep rise was driven by the boom in lithium-ion button cells for wireless headphones. However, competition increased and demand weakened. In addition, Varta's development of its own electric car battery cell V4Drive swallowed up a lot of money.

Due to the numerous problems, Varta reached an agreement with banks and its majority shareholder on a far-reaching restructuring in 2023. Nevertheless, the Group had to lower its annual forecasts for 2023 several times. At the beginning of 2024, the company also fell victim to a hacker attack. The subsequent production shutdown also cost Varta a lot of money.

All in all, the slump in demand, cheap offers from competitors in Asia and the cyber attack set the company back significantly in its restructuring. The Board of Directors is now negotiating a solution with its lenders./mis/ajx/stw/stk