SSE and nPower merger talks

Uxb

Hengus wrote: »

Labour is now demanding that the proposal goes to the CMA for review.

Now that IS funny
considering that Labour want to nationalise the lot and create just one total and complete monopoly supplier.

[Deleted User]

Carrot007 wrote: »

The way it has been set out nothing is going to happen for at least a year and then if it does it would be over the next year so who knows.

It will be completed faster than a year (assuming no statutory mergers investigation goes ahead). From the BBC News Business pages

Innogy(npower's owners) will also receive a break fee of £60m if SSE's shareholders fail to approve the deal by 31 July 2018

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41912570

And as for npower's customer service, well in my experience, it is as bad as SSE. So I doubt there would be any improvement by using SSE.

And for my sins, I'm currently with npower (for a third time) for electricity. And it is better this time round, the last time was when they upgraded their IT and was not pleasant. Funnily enough I was at Scottish Power when they messed up their IT and that caused me much pain. And have just left Flow where their gas billing melted down under me.

Am I a jink?

Dia_Pita

My worry is that the merger could cause redundancies, you are not going to have two people (one from each company ) doing the same job, e.g wages, HR.

trickytree1963

Uxb wrote: »

Now that IS funny
considering that Labour want to nationalise the lot and create just one total and complete monopoly supplier.

Not true, Labour's manifesto on Energy in precis


Energy market partially brought back into public ownership.
Creation of at least one publicly owned energy company in every region of the UK.
Central government control of the grid and distribution.
Cap average household dual fuel bills at £1,000 a year.
Ban fracking.

Carrot007

Dia_Pita wrote: »

My worry is that the merger could cause redundancies, you are not going to have two people (one from each company ) doing the same job, e.g wages, HR.

Redundancies are obviously going to happen.

However since SSE are just ridding themselves of the domestic business, SSE will be keeping their wages and HR I'm sure (though they are probably outsourced anyway).

Carrot007

gsmlnx wrote: »

It will be completed faster than a year (assuming no statutory mergers investigation goes ahead). From the BBC News Business pages
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41912570

And as for npower's customer service, well in my experience, it is as bad as SSE. So I doubt there would be any improvement by using SSE.

And for my sins, I'm currently with npower (for a third time) for electricity. And it is better this time round, the last time was when they upgraded their IT and was not pleasant. Funnily enough I was at Scottish Power when they messed up their IT and that caused me much pain. And have just left Flow where their gas billing melted down under me.

Am I a jink?

They are talking about running deomestic as a new supplier, i.e. not npower (yelg,need,mide) or sse (don't know the mpid's offhand). so that requires certification and that will take around a year. That is also a year once it is agreed. And agreed is just that, not meaning it has happened.

I had no problems in npowers IT upgrade. But then I was a single rate customer and gave monthly reads. It was a simple one! Scottish Power have caused me no issue either, but I am wary to leave knowing there issues with that. but as I say they are near enough the cheapest for me so I have not had to! And they are finally going to try to fit a smart meter. but I 60% expect the result to be no signal cannot do!

joncombe

SallyG wrote: »

Can't stomach the idea of being back with Npower via SSE merger - would it be deemed contract change /grounds for leaving penalty free?

Most suppliers allow you to switch to another of their tariffs without penalty. So you can switch to one of their tariffs that does not have a penalty fee - and then switch to someone else.

[Deleted User]

@Carrot007
I'm a single rate customer and give a least one reading a month and still npower & SP & SSE & Flow managed to mess things up in the past wholly through their incompetence (And the Flow issues are current, just read their feedback thread).

I wonder if Powershop (UK ) is part of the merger as it is an npower owned consumer supplier? Haven't seen it mentioned in any of the press but I would assume it is as Innogy want to get out of the domestic supplier business in the UK and are going to sell their stake in the new company as soon as they can https://www.ft.com/content/0a577b98-c45a-11e7-a1d2-6786f39ef675.

[Deleted User]

joncombe wrote: »

Most suppliers allow you to switch to another of their tariffs without penalty.

But funnily enough my npower tariff did not allow free swaps until this week when you can now swap to their "Go Green Energy Fix December 2019" tariff only without paying exit fees
Talk about timing eh.

ExtraMask

Carrot007 wrote: »

Redundancies are obviously going to happen.

However since SSE are just ridding themselves of the domestic business, SSE will be keeping their wages and HR I'm sure (though they are probably outsourced anyway).

SSE didn't go through any new system changes like npower did. So the merge would involve everyone migrating to one system. SSE HR would need to be trained on the system npower uses, which would cost money. Whereas npower's HR wouldn't need training as they already use it.