Are Any of the Energy Companies Still Fully UK Owned?

Splitrim

HI Folks

Don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of my hard earned being squirreled away by companies that appear to be "British", but in fact are actually owned by Foreign based companies.

Scottish Power have done themselves no favours for me by requesting unreasonable monthly direct debit payments, so where do I go now?

Which of the UK energy suppliers are really UK companies?

Which of them seems to offer fair tarrifs

Have any of them got a genuinely good customer service record?

Interested to see what MSE folks come up with

macman

Bad news for you, but Scottish Power are Spanish owned anyway-they have been owned by Iberdrola since 2006.
What defines 'British' anyway? Where the company is headquartered, where it employs staff? Or where the holding company is located?
The shareholders can be based anywhere in the world regardless.
You can set up a business in Ulan Bator and still call it 'British Widgets' if you want.
By your narrow definition, you are probably best off with SSE or BG. Though BG is owned by a British based multinational with major interests outside the UK.
Excepting those two, to get a truly 'British' company you'd need to go outside the big 6. Ecotricity?

Splitrim

I didnt got to Scottish Power for the reason of them being British, but as you say most companies in the energy industry are not British.

Maybe thats why they dont seem to care about happy customers, as all they are doing is plundering the British Purse.

macman

If a company is employing people in the UK and paying corporate taxes here, does it really matter?

Splitrim

LOL Mac

I bet most of these companies have found ways to avoid as much coproration tax as possible, and the Uk is where most of the redundancies are.

I have a friend who is senior engineer with Eon; he has had to move to Germany as all the posts at his level have been moved out of the UK.

macman

I would imagine that all companies seek to minimise their tax bills, nothing exclusive to energy companies.

undaunted

How about

Ebico - a not for profit co.

Co operative energy - no shareholders, they are owned by their members who share in profits

Lovelyjoolz

I believe that Southern Electric is the only wholly UK owned energy company left in the UK now.

bob_bank_spanker

BG and SSE are the only ones of the major 6 not owned by a foreign parent company.

MentalMinnie

Isn't OVO UK owned?

magyar

The reality is that all the big 6 are international energy companies. It just so happens SSE and Centrica have their headquarters in the UK. Both of them are in practice owned by their shareholders (who are not necessarily British), but both have substantial operations abroad.

RWE, E.ON and Iberdrola are all owned by shareholders and happen to have headquarters in Germany or Madrid.

The only exception is really EDF which is 80% owned by the French government which exerts significant levels of control over it.