WARNING! Bulb Energy post almost £130million annual loss!

Benight

I see Bulb Energy have finally posted their accounts, only 3 weeks late (again!)

Last year, you may recall wavelets posted that Bulb Energy posted a loss of £23million for the year ended 31 March 2018.

Well the bean counters at Bulb Energy seem to have had another play on their abacus, and decided that figure should really have been £28million loss! :cool:
What's £5million between friends? Perhaps they lost it down the back of their sofa?

But all that pales into insignificance when you look at the results for the year ended 31 March 2019.

For the year ended 31 March 2019, Bulb Energy made a loss of £129,241,596 :eek::eek:

In total, the company is now in debt to the sum of more than £160million.

Swipe

No wonder they won't lower their prices then. Must be all those referral payouts bankrupting them.

FtbDreaming

Ooh goodness... I was with economy energy that went under. Only been with Bulb a month, hope they're not going the same way.

oldernonethewiser

They still seem to be growing their customer base, but still giving money away (although down from the £75 I got)

Swipe

Is there a credible source for this latest news? Where did you hear about this?

oldernonethewiser

Don't know if it is credible but it was on the Telegraph website, may even have been in the paper.


Here is another site with the info - https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/bulb-net-loss-surges-to-129-million-as-revenues-and-members-rise

FreeBear

Swipe wrote: »

Is there a credible source for this latest news?

Straight from the horse's mouth via Companies House - https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08469555/filing-history

Streaky_Bacon

The accounts in question can be found here

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08469555/filing-history (just click the View PDF)

It is not unusual for a growing company to make an operating profit but still have a large loss, due to the investment costs of expansion, new technology etc

A lot of this will fall under the administrative expenses line item, which is £136 million.

For the previous year it was £35 million.

In theory cutting the majority of those expenses would not impact the ability of the company to run on a day to day basis, in its current form. So the company would probably make an £8 million profit if it did that, but any expansion would cease.

SnowTiger

UK's seventh largest energy supplier according to Wikipedia.

Blub's growth has been pretty amazing.

Date            Customers (approx.)

January 2017	15,000
August 2017	100,000
January 2018	200,000 or 300,000
August 2018	670,000
January 2019	870,000
March 2019	1,000,000
October 2019	1,500,000

I'm not keen on their marketing strategy, which has led to punters spamming referral links all over the place. And they're a bit pricey.

UnclaimedEnergy

They're secured until at least mid/late 2021. (again mentioned in the accounts) and took out £55m loans to cover ongoing payments etc.

They have deep pockets and paid out a lot last year on the referrals as mentioned (30% custs are referrals) - £17m?

They then paid for TV adverts back in Feb 18, which would need to be considered.

It's worth noting that it took OVO energy 7 years to make a profit in 2016. Now they're the 3rd biggest company.

roddydogs

Bulb, octopus, Pure planetetc that offer £50 Or more, dont we just all join for the cashback, then off to the next?