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Bristol Energy’s final losses revealed
Bristol Energy lost another £14.8m last year, latest financial data shows.
Details of the losses were revealed in the failed company’s final annual report published on Sunday.
Bristol City Council established Bristol Energy in 2015 to provide affordable energy for residents while returning a profit for the local authority.
is needed now More than ever
The company failed to turn a profit despite up to £37.5m of council investment, and the council finally admitted defeat last year, breaking up and selling the company for a total of £15.3m.
It has asked its external auditor Grant Thornton for a public interest report into the matter, to find out what went wrong and the exact extent of the losses for council taxpayers.
Bristol Energy was finally sold last year for a total of £15.3m – photo by Martin Booth
In the meantime, the latest annual report of the energy firm, renamed BE 2020 in October, sheds some more light on the financial fortunes of the company in its last complete year of trading as Bristol Energy.
Financial statements for the year to March 31, 2020, show the firm posted an adjusted operating loss of £8.5m last financial year.
This compared with £10.1m in 2019 and £10.3m in 2018, and takes its total posted operating losses to around £40m since 2016.
However, adjusted operating losses do not tell the whole story.
The £8.5m figure reported for the 2019/20 year does not take into account just under £3.3m in bad debt and other costs such as £219,000 for restructuring.
When these extra costs are included the official operating loss reached £13.26m last year.
And after interest and tax were taken into account, the total loss for the year “being total comprehensive expense for the year” was £14.8m, the report states.
In previous years, this figure reached £12.1m in 2019, £11.2m in 2018 and £8.4m in 2017.
“The directors do not recommend the payment of a dividend,” the report for 2019/20 says.
Bristol Energy was set up in 2015 by Bristol City Council’s then cross-party cabinet after the idea of a wholly council-owned energy company was approved in principle in 2010.
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Read more: Bristol Energy sold for £14m
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The current ruling Labour administration took office in 2016. The company’s business plan at that time committed the council to spend £15.7m on Bristol Energy.
Three years later, the Labour cabinet agreed to increase the investment to a maximum of £37.7m. Bristol Energy gained 3,000 new residential customers last financial year, taking the total to 168,000, but lost a handful of business customers, leaving it with 176 by March 31, 2020, according to the latest annual report.
Its annual turnover was £102.2m compared with £76.2m the previous financial year.
By September 2020, the company had sold its domestic and residential customers for a total of £15.3m.
Together Energy agreed to buy its domestic customers for £14m while Yu Energy agreed to purchase its business customers for £1.34m.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has contacted the council for comment.
Amanda Cameron is a local democracy reporter for Bristol
Read more: Tories seek government intervention for inquiry into Bristol Energy
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