for sending out an email to SSE cus-
tomers with energy-saving tips that
included cuddling their pets and do-
ing star-jumps to stay warm.
Ovo was founded by Stephen Fitz-
patrick in 2009. The 44-year-old re-
mains its controlling shareholder and
is now a billionaire on paper through
his stake in Ovo and in Vertical Aero-
space, a flying taxi venture. Ovo ac-
quired SSE’s supply business in a
£500 million deal, taking on its much
larger customer base and staff.
Alongside the job cuts, Ovo is also
expected to announce it is reducing
its number of sites from around ten at
present to just three — London, Bris-
tol and Glasgow — and adopting
greater home-working patterns.
It is also expected to say that it will
increase minimum pay to £12 an hour
and open a new training academy in
Glasgow.
Ovo declined to comment.Ovo axes quarter of workforce
as it attempts to rein in costs
Ovo is cutting 1,700 jobs — or more
than a quarter of its workforce — as it
seeks to cut costs and navigate the
energy crisis.
Britain’s third-biggest energy sup-
plier is expected to confirm today
that it is opening a voluntary redun-
dancy programme as part of a raft of
changes it claims will strengthen and
simplify its business.
The job cuts come as Ovo Energy
transfers millions of customers that it
acquired with the SSE energy supply
business over to its own IT platform
and systems, which are understood to
require fewer staff than SSE’s.
However, news of such sweeping
job cuts may also fuel questions re-
garding Ovo’s financial resilience, at a
time when many energy suppliers are
struggling to cover their costs
because of soaring wholesale gas and
Emily Gosden Energy Editor electricity prices and the govern-
ment’s energy price cap.
The group reported a pre-tax loss
of £176 million on revenues of £4.5 bil-
lion in 2020, and is understood to be
seeking to raise more funds. Ovo
already announced 2,600 job cuts in
2020 after acquiring the SSE supply
business at the start of that year. The
company, which supplies 4.5 million
households under brands including
Ovo Energy and SSE, now employs
about 6,200 people in the UK.
The job cuts, first reported by Sky
News, continue a difficult week for
Ovo after it was forced to apologise£4.5bn
Revenues in 2020
Ovo Energy44 2GM Thursday January 13 2022 | the times
Business
T
he boss of
JD Sports
yesterday
toasted a
“sensational
result” for the
sportswear retailer after
lifting its profit guidance
to more than double
pre-pandemic levels
(Ashley Armstrong
writes).
The self-styled “King
of Trainers” reported a
rise of more than 10 per
cent in like-for-like sales
over the 22 weeks to
January 1 after it
performed well during
the Black Friday
promotional period and
in the weeks leading up
to Christmas.
JD Sports said that its
headline pre-tax profits
would be ahead of
market expectations of
£810 million and would
be at least £875 million.
It suggested that it had
enjoyed a £100 million
boost from fiscal
stimulus measures in the
United States, which had
encouraged shoppers to
spend as Covid
restrictions eased. The
headline profits were
double the
£438.8 million achieved
before the pandemic.
JD Sports was startedby John Wardle and
David Makin in
Manchester in 1981 and
has grown from a single
store into a global retail
chain with 3,066 shops,
including the Size?,
Footpatrol and Go
Outdoors shops in
Britain and Finish Line,
Shoe Palace, DTLR Villa
and Livestock in
America. Peter Cowgill,
68, has run the company
and chaired the board
since 2004, in which
time he has delivered a
9,700 per cent-plus
return to shareholders.
Shares in JD Sports
were down 7¼p, or
3.3 per cent, at 211½p
last night, valuing the
company at £11 billion.
Analysts at Peel Hunt
said: “We expect further
growth both organically
and by acquisition. Our
admiration is undimmed
... The strength of US
trading may not recur in
normal times, but JD
has stared down Everest-
like comparisons many
times before.”
Cowgill called the
festive performance “a
sensational result... I
think it’s pretty
spectacular, doubling
the profit, which is sort
of being overlooked.” Hesaid that despite a slight
slip in shopper numbers
to its stores on high
streets and in retail
centres, those who had
made it out had done so
with the intention to
spend.
Cowgill admitted that
the retailer still faced
supply constraints as a
result of challenges
caused by closures and
reduced productivity in
the Far East caused bycoronavirus restrictions
and global shipping
delays. Nike has said
that there will be lower
supplies until Easter.
The JD Sports boss said
such challenges would
unwind in the second
half of the year, but
would result in its big
sports brand partners
delaying some product
launches or having less
stock.
Cowgill said that whileKnockout Christmas
profits for JD Sports
ss