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(Alliance News) - Octopus Energy has made a last-minute bid in a three-way race to buy collapsed UK electricity and gas supplier Bulb, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
British Gas parent Centrica PLC and Masdar, an Abu Dhabi-based energy company, are also in talks with the UK government ahead of a month-end deadline, the FT reported, citing people familiar with the talks.
The government is expected of offer bidders a clear balance sheet with no debt, as well as a financial dowry to secure a deal, the newspaper said, citing two people close to the negotiations. However, the government has not proffered how much money it will inject, instead waiting to see what the three bidders offer.
https://www.ft.com/content/5737fc92-4772-451b-a555-7d227f9e9872?emailId=62a37e46df84e10004d6c52f&segmentId=3d08be62-315f-7330-5bbd-af33dc531acb
Britain's then-seventh biggest energy supplier Bulb, which provided gas or electricity to 1.7 million households, entered special administration in November as it was squeezed out of the market.
Bulb became the first energy supplier to rely on regulator Ofgem's special administration regime.
In the past Ofgem dealt with collapsed energy suppliers through its supplier-of-last-resort process, which simply moves thousands of customers from the failed company to another supplier. However the SoLR process had never dealt with a company as big as Bulb. Before Bulb, the biggest supplier to collapse was Avro Energy, which had 580,000 customers.
By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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