In financial difficulty, Hopium is keeping a low profile. The chairman of the board, former French minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, cancelled his participation in a forum earlier this month.
He was supposed to speak at the first forum of the AIT*, the Agency for Innovation in Transport, which took place on 7 and 8 February in Paris. He was posted as a speaker for a round table on the first day (“What disruptive innovations do we need in the transport sector?”), along with other speakers from RATP (Autonomous Parisian Transportation Administration), Urbanloop, DGITM (Directorate-General for Infrastructure, Transport and Mobility) and the AID (Defence Innovation Agency). In the end, Mr Djebbari did not turn up, reports “Lettre A” (the French daily newspaper about influence and power).
The last public information dates back to January 31. In a press release, Hopium announced that it had drawn a third instalment of the bond debt concluded with the firm Atlas Special Opportunities on 20 September 2022. It consists of 200 bonds convertible into shares with a nominal value of 10,000 euros each (around $10,700). This represents a sum of €2 million (about $2.14 million). With this partner, the French hydrogen car manufacturer benefits from a maximum gross amount of €21.5 million (around $23 million). It also has a financing line concluded on 13 June 2022 with the company LDA for a maximum gross amount of €50 million (about $53.4 million).
*He was still a minister when the agency was created
Article written by Laurent Meillaud and translated by Logan King
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