Broke firm’s £50m bonus for founders | A £50 million payout for Scottish energy entrepreneurs whose company went bust
Broke firm’s £50m bonus for founders | A £50 million payout for Scottish energy entrepreneurs whose company went bust
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*Mark McLaughlin, July 27 2022, The Times*
A £50 million payout for Scottish energy entrepreneurs whose company went bust has been described as “a slap in the face” for customers who were left with a combined £238 million in bills.
David Pike and Karen Sode, the couple behind Edinburgh-based People’s Energy, could get the dividend from administrators thanks to energy contracts the company held at the time it collapsed, Bloomberg reported.
People’s Energy went bust last September as wholesale energy prices soared. Its 350,000 customers were transferred to British Gas, which can claim £283 million from all households for the costs it incurred, mostly for buying energy to supply them.
Colin Smyth, Scottish Labour’s energy spokesman, said: “These pay-outs are a slap in the face to people facing soaring bills. There is something badly wrong with a system that hands tens of millions of pounds to shareholders of failed energy companies while customers are left to struggle.”
Willie Rennie, the Scottish Liberal Democrat economy spokesman, said: “There are big questions that need answered as to why consumers end up worse off but the company owners secure tens of millions of pounds. The ethical foundations of the firm surely must dictate a review of this pay out.”
Pike and Sode own a 25 per cent stake. Sode said that the other 75 per cent would go to fuel poverty causes.
People’s Energy had wholesale energy contracts in place via BP at the time it collapsed that were then sold on behalf of the administrators, bringing in almost £300 million.
> which can claim £283 million from all households for the costs it incurred, mostly for buying energy to supply them.
That seems a very strange way of trying to say something. Has BG raised a claim against the transferred customers, or is it them have put them on a current capped tariff?
>The ethical foundations of the firm
hahahahaha