The Times - UK (2021-12-22)

the times | Wednesday December 22 2021 43

Business

Emily Gosden Energy Editor

The cost to the taxpayer of running
Bulb, the failed energy supplier, could
spiral by £1 billion or more as gas prices
hit fresh record highs, according to
industry estimates.
Britain’s seventh biggest energy
supplier collapsed last month with
1.6 million household customers and
was placed in government-backed spe-
cial administration with a £1.7 billion
taxpayer loan to fund its operations.
Sources told The Times that the
government had opted for Bulb’s
administrators to buy the vast majority
of its wholesale energy needs at short
notice, as little as a day in advance,
leaving it exposed to surging costs.
Gas prices hit new highs yesterday as
Russian supplies to Europe fell further
while cold weather pushed demand
higher. Benchmark UK month-ahead
gas prices were up more than a fifth at
about 450p a therm last night — about
nine times higher than a year ago —
having touched 470p a therm.
Thomas Rodgers, a gas analyst at Icis,
the price reporting agency, said: “There
is clearly a level of panic and distressed
buying in the market.”
Day-ahead gas prices have more
than doubled since Bulb was placed in
special administration, while day-
ahead baseload electricity prices have
risen by close to half. One well-placed
source estimated that this could inflate
the cost to taxpayers of running Bulb by
at least £1 billion if high prices persist
this winter; another suggested a rise by
as much as £2 billion.
The latest rally threatens to pile more
misery on households, with analysts

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Nine executives behind a renewable
energy investment business are set to
share up to £478 million after Schroders
struck a deal to take control of Green-
coat Capital.
The majority of the windfall will be
split between the four senior partners
of Greencoat, including Richard
Nourse, a former investment banker

Greencoat bosses set for £478m windfall after Schroders deal

Ben Martin Senior City Correspondent who founded the London-based group
12 years ago.
Schroders, Britain’s biggest listed
fund management company running
£716.9 billion of assets as of the end of
September, has agreed to pay £358 mil-
lion in cash upfront to buy 75 per cent of
the company, which invests in wind
farms and other green energy projects.
The FTSE 100 fund manager also will
pay as much as £120 million after three

years if Greencoat hits revenue targets

and if its senior management are still at

the business.

The lucrative deal underscores the

booming nature of the fast-growing

green investment industry.

Mounting concerns about climate

change have led to an explosion of

investment products designed to sate

investor demand for an environmen-

tally friendly home for their money.

Sustainable investing is increasingly at

the forefront of asset managers’ mar-

keting, although the green credentials

of some funds have been questioned.

Greencoat was an early mover in

renewables investing and now mana-

ges £6.7 billion of infrastructure assets

via two trusts listed in London and

Dublin and a range of private funds. Its

investments mainly include onshore

and offshore UK wind farms, but also

solar power projects, two biomass

plants in Lincolnshire and Rotherham

and industrial greenhouse develop-

ments. It has interests in Europe and

last year pushed into the United States.

Schroders has agreed on a series of

options to buy the remaining 25 per

cent of Greencoat “over time at a price

based on a fair market valuation”.

Schroders’ shares rose 105p, or 3.1 per

cent, to £34.80.

Supplier exposed as gas prices reach record high

Taxpayer bill

for Bulb may

rise by £1bn

already saying that the price cap on

domestic energy bills could rise by

more than half to £2,000 a year from

April without government inter-

vention.

Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of

Energy UK, which represents leading

suppliers, called on the chancellor to

respond. “It’s like we’ve spotted a live

grenade in a room full of people and

we’ve been told to put a pillow over it

and cross fingers rather than worry

anyone,” she said.

Bulb is the biggest of more than two

dozen energy suppliers to collapse this

year, many after failing to guard against

rising wholesale prices by buying in

advance, or “hedging”. Suppliers left

exposed to high short-term wholesale

costs have been unable to pass these on

to customers because of the govern-

ment’s energy price cap.

When it collapsed, Bulb was under-

stood to have at most a few months of

hedging in place, much less than most

companies of its scale.

Sources said that when special

administrators from Teneo took over

running Bulb last month they still did

not buy in advance because of a

Treasury policy against hedging.

Many in the industry are shocked at

the apparent scale of risk to the tax-

payer and to consumers, who may end

up paying for it on their energy bills.

A spokeswoman for Bulb declined to

comment. A government spokes-

woman said: “The special administra-

tor of Bulb is obligated to minimise

costs of the administration process and

we continue to engage closely with

them throughout to ensure taxpayer

value is maximised.”

Four-day week sparks Atom jobs rush

Katherine Griffiths Banking Editor

Atom Bank says it has had a 500 per

cent jump in applications for job vacan-

cies since it introduced a four-day week

for staff with no loss of pay.

Staff surveys are also showing that

employees feel less stressed and that no

evidence of a negative impact on

customer service or operations has

been detected in the two months since

the digital bank broke ground by

declaring that it would move perma-

nently to a four-day week.

Anne-Marie Lister, Atom’s chief

people officer, said: “We firmly believe a

four-day week is the future of work for

many. The new year often brings about

a desire in many people to change

something about how they live their

lives. We want and expect to see more

companies introducing increasingly

flexible working practices in 2022.”

The Times revealed last month that

Atom was moving staff to a four-day

week with no loss of pay. Most staff

went from a 37.5-hour working week

spread over five days to a 34-hour week

over four days.

Other companies, including Unilev-

er and Morrisons, have experimented

with a four-day option for some staff,

but Atom made it the default arrange-

ment for most of its 430 employees.

Atom, based in Durham, began in

2016 as a branchless bank accessed via

digital devices. It offers savings and

mortgage products to consumers and

small businesses and has just reported

its first quarterly profit. It aims to float

on the stock market in 2022 or 2023.

Companies are experimenting with a

variety of benefits for staff that before

the pandemic would have been likely to

have been deemed far too generous.

FinnCap, the City broker, said last

month its 155 staff would be entitled to

unlimited paid time off to help them to

avoid burnout. From next month, staff

will be required to take off at least four

weeks a year, including a few days each

quarter. FinnCap encourages staff to

use this time off to relax rather than to

do chores or to use it for appointments.

Home and Away Away Resorts, which has nine holiday parks in Britain and is backed by CVC Capital Partners, has

taken over the Sheffield-based Coppergreen Leisure Resorts in the latest private equity-backed deal cashing in on the

staycation boom during the pandemic. Coppergreen has parks in Yorkshire, Scotland, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire