(Bloomberg) -- The co-founder of Europe’s biggest battery-maker, Northvolt AB, says the timing of what will be one of the region’s most high-profile listings in recent years will only be firmed up once issuance conditions improve.

“The market has been pretty shaky in the last 18 months,” said Paolo Cerruti in an interview as the company announced plans to set up a plant in Canada, its first in North America.

Northvolt has so far raised more than $9 billion through a combination of debt and equity financing. The scale of the capital raising and its heavyweight backers, including Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Volkswagen AG, continue to fuel speculation about when the landmark initial public offering will be launched.

“The reality is that we don’t have a calendar yet,” said Cerruti in reference to the IPO timeline. 

In August, the battery-maker raised $1.2 billion from BlackRock Inc. and Canadian pension groups including CCP Investments. The investment, in the form of a convertible bond, financed the expansion of production in Europe and North America. The company was valued at $12 billion after a funding round last year. 

Jim Hageman Snabe, the company’s chairman, said earlier this year that while a listing was a future possibility, the company has had no problems raising capital as a closely held company. The Siemens AG chairman was brought in to helm the board of directors late last year, as the company said it sought to build a “more independent board with global industrial excellence.” 

Read More: BMW Supplier Northvolt Gets Billions From Canada for New Plant

Cerruti, who will now lead Northvolt’s operations in North America, said the company doesn’t feel that it has “a knife on the throat to go public at any cost,” and the co-founder also dismissed the idea of raising capital through a blank-check company — known as a SPAC.

“We want to do things properly,” he said. “We will do it when we’re ready and when the right time is there.”

Read More: Northvolt Raises $1.2 Billion Amid Canada Battery Factory Plans

(Adds details on chairman in 6th paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of company name in headline.)

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