Yorkshire energy ?

masonic

uptdale said:

masonic said:

Statement of Administrator's Proposals is now published: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09689195/filing-history/MzI5MDIwODg5N2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

Makes interesting reading. Good to see that all 10 employees were retained for a period of time.

Yes, an interesting read.  The financials on page 7 show that YE always made a gross loss, i.e. it was never able to charge us customers enough to cover the direct costs of buying the electricity and gas it sold us, let alone contribute to its overheads.

The 10 employees still employed on 7 December were retained by the administrators, but it looks like another 12 employees were let go shortly before (see page 13 on preferential creditors).  The 22 employees were owed £9,900 altogether - most or all of which they will by now have presumably claimed from the government's redundancy payments fund. 

Thanks yes, missed that there were 22 preferential creditors. Looks like they are projecting that there will be sufficient assets realised to cover the payments, I guess that money will be clawed back by the redundancy payments fund.

It's no surprise that the strategy was to go in with a loss leader to build market share, but the lack of capital available to them was a bit of a surprise. Their gross loss scales almost linearly with turnover, so they should have been able to project that they were going to run out of money some time in 2020 or early 2021 at the beginning of last year. Most companies that walk this path secure multiple years funding to support their cash burn, often with recourse to further external investment. It seems YE did not.

YorkieMan2

Does anyone have up to date info on Avro Energy?  I was all set to move to them once SP sort out my account but I see they made a £28m loss to Jun 2019 and that both directors later left the company.  Accounts to Jun 2020 do not seem to be available.  Another one about to bite the dust?

bagand96

masonic said:h

uptdale said:

masonic said:

Statement of Administrator's Proposals is now published: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09689195/filing-history/MzI5MDIwODg5N2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

Makes interesting reading. Good to see that all 10 employees were retained for a period of time.

Yes, an interesting read.  The financials on page 7 show that YE always made a gross loss, i.e. it was never able to charge us customers enough to cover the direct costs of buying the electricity and gas it sold us, let alone contribute to its overheads.

The 10 employees still employed on 7 December were retained by the administrators, but it looks like another 12 employees were let go shortly before (see page 13 on preferential creditors).  The 22 employees were owed £9,900 altogether - most or all of which they will by now have presumably claimed from the government's redundancy payments fund. 

Thanks yes, missed that there were 22 preferential creditors. Looks like they are projecting that there will be sufficient assets realised to cover the payments, I guess that money will be clawed back by the redundancy payments fund.

It's no surprise that the strategy was to go in with a loss leader to build market share, but the lack of capital available to them was a bit of a surprise. Their gross loss scales almost linearly with turnover, so they should have been able to project that they were going to run out of money some time in 2020 or early 2021 at the beginning of last year. Most companies that walk this path secure multiple years funding to support their cash burn, often with recourse to further external investment. It seems YE did not.

I guess one of the problems for these smaller companies entering the market with loss-leader tariffs to build customer share is customer retention. 

Generally the customers that would go for the very cheapest tariff and be happy with a small or new provider will be the serial switchers. Once you’ve lured them in, how do you retain them before they just jump to the next cheapest offer?

Bacman

slpj said:

Can someone here please tell me, exactly what is supposed to happen when setting up a DD with SP? Do they confirm it? Where can I see this on the online account, if anywhere?

I mentioned this before - if you had a previous account with SP, your old bank details/DD will still be there, so if you have changed your account you need to change their details accordingly (I had to do this), easy to do. Even if you are a new SP account, check the direct debit details are correct - it is quick and easy to amend if you need to. If you don't then SP will try to take payment and will be bounced back.

rooster47

Still no final bill here. The administrators appear to be working like a government department slow, slow and even slower whilst showing a large self interest, annoying as many others as possible, whilst racking up an enormous bill for their 'services'. Hey ho, I shouldn't complain, I used to be guilty of doing the same!

masonic

YorkieMan2 said:

Does anyone have up to date info on Avro Energy?  I was all set to move to them once SP sort out my account but I see they made a £28m loss to Jun 2019 and that both directors later left the company.  Accounts to Jun 2020 do not seem to be available.  Another one about to bite the dust?

The accounts to June 2019 were posted in June 2020, so you won't see 2020 accounts for a while. The directors did not resign, the company restructured so that Avro Energy Limited became a subsidiary of Avro Group Limited, with the same directors active in the group company. The accounts show the company was selling energy just above cost price, but is not making enough to cover its overheads, so a similar picture to YE. What the accounts don't show is whether it is able to continue fund its losses while it continues to build market share. TBH it is a risk with any small supplier, Avro was profitable according to its unaudited 2017 accounts, but apparently changed its business model to target faster growth.

bagand96 said:

I guess one of the problems for these smaller companies entering the market with loss-leader tariffs to build customer share is customer retention. 

Generally the customers that would go for the very cheapest tariff and be happy with a small or new provider will be the serial switchers. Once you’ve lured them in, how do you retain them before they just jump to the next cheapest offer?

This is of course the risk in taking such an approach, though some suppliers do seem to make it work. I note YE did become less competitive in the first half of last year, but then returned to offering table-topping rates over the summer. At the time I was eyeing moving elsewhere, but thought I was very lucky to secure another competitive YE 1 year fix just in the nick of time...

masonic

rooster47 said:

Still no final bill here. The administrators appear to be working like a government department slow, slow and even slower whilst showing a large self interest, annoying as many others as possible, whilst racking up an enormous bill for their 'services'. Hey ho, I shouldn't complain, I used to be guilty of doing the same!

The statement of proposals shows they are paying retained YE staff to deal with the billing aspect. I can't really blame them if they are not working as quickly as possible, once the job is complete they will be disposed of.

YorkieMan2

SP are still unable to confirm that they are my Electricity supplier.  Should I put them in touch with Northern Powergrid who, more than two weeks ago, informed me that my supplier was SP?

rooster47

masonic said:

rooster47 said:

Still no final bill here. The administrators appear to be working like a government department slow, slow and even slower whilst showing a large self interest, annoying as many others as possible, whilst racking up an enormous bill for their 'services'. Hey ho, I shouldn't complain, I used to be guilty of doing the same!

The statement of proposals shows they are paying retained YE staff to deal with the billing aspect. I can't really blame them if they are not working as quickly as possible, once the job is complete they will be disposed of.

The best placed people to sort the YE issue was always retained YE employees, I've done the same, and sadly 'dispose' them later. Its a cheaper option than using administrator's own employees. That doesn't excuse the slow management of the YE business closure

ThinWilly

I switched to E.on from Scottish Power/Yorkshire Energy and the switch went through but there was problems with entering a meter reading with the electricity )because Scottish Power kept taking the supplies back). As a result Scottish Power way over estimated the electricity on the final bill. I gave them the correct reading as soon as I got the final bill and saw it was completely wrong but have received a message saying they are unable to change the readings or the final bill because there is an active direct debit on the account but I will be refunded once the direct debit is collected and the payment order is no longer active.

No money has been taken from my account yet. I was with Scottish Power in the past and I have never known them stick to an estimated read for a final bill before once they have been given the correct readings, it all seems very fishy and I wonder what my chances are of actually getting a refund.

Would I be better off cancelling the direct debit and asking for a new bill with the actual readings or will this put me in more trouble in terms of cerdit rating etc or getting a revised bill. I normally wouldn't consider doing something like cancelling a direct debit but honestly Scottish Power have proven to be dishonest and underhand so I am considering it if it won't make things worse.

I must say the advice we have been given is shocking. We were told to stay with Scottish Power until the account was set up, only for it to take six weeks to set up an account by which time all the good tariffs had vanished into thin air -  bad advice. Told to set up a direct debit only to be told the reason they can't give me an accurate bill is because I have an active direct debit - bad advice.

I will be staying away from these little energy providers from now on and of course Scottish Power due to this, I think it has been handled very poorly.