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Taxpayers will face 4.5bn bill.

 

Octopus bulb energy

The taxpayer is to put up as much as £4.5 billion to rescue Bulb, the energy retailer, from financial collapse.The government has given the green light to the transfer of Bulb Energy’s 1.5 million customers to Octopus Energy, its larger competitor.The sale to Octopus was agreed two minutes before a midnight deadline on Tuesday, giving some assurance to Bulb customers going into Christmas.

Bulb got into financial difficulties last year, like several others, after spikes in the energy price that occurred even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Octopus agreed to acquire it two months ago and Bulb was put into a special administration last month, in effect a nationalisation, to allow it to continue operating pending a deal.
The business and energy department said that, to protect consumers, the government will be providing support to «a new and separate entity, owned by Octopus Energy, which will serve Bulb customers until the transfer process has completed and those customers have been fully transferred to Octopus».
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  1. Simon22 December 2022 at 20:34

    Why did this have to take so long to be agreed upon? 2 minutes before the deadline?! What are we doing here? Why can't we get these deals done much sooner?

    ReplyDelete

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