Integrated green power supplier Good Energy today signalled its continuing drive towards business customers, posting a 15% ‘normalised’ pre-tax profits rise to £2.4 m for calendar 2020.
CEO Juliet Davenport’s Chippenham-based renewables pioneer posted sales up 5% to £130.6 m, buoyed by more ICE accounts and more FiT customers.
Business customers rose 9%, offsetting 5% drop in homes supplied. Overall customer numbers dropped 1.8 % to 271,000.
Restructuring means the firm will pay no 2020 dividend, however. Before interest charges and tax, gross profits retreated nearly 7% to £29.6m, on the back of higher network costs, of return sales of excess contracted power and a strategic switch to longer term, lower-margin supply to industrial and business customers.
Earlier this month the firm freed up nearly £8 million from cashflow, as it completed the refinancing of some of its generating assets, accelerating depreciation charges on some. It ended 2020 with a gross cash balance of £18.3 million, up 35% year on year.
One-off restructuring costs of £ 0.5m pushed 2020’s reported pre-tax loss to £ 0.1m. The generator/retailer said it had set aside £ 0.8m to cover anticipated customer debts linked to the Covid pandemic.
Net debt for the year fell to £34.6m, and the firm’s revaluation of its 47.5MW generation portfolio added £13.3m to reserves. The supplier’s debt-to-equity gearing decreased to 51.6%, down from 68.9%.
Good Energy presented the results as “a positive financial performance from the core business, despite the ongoing macro conditions impacted by COVID”.
Nominal earnings per share decreased to 0.4p, with reported earnings per share also at 0.4p, down from 2019’s reported profit per share of 7.5p.
Operational highlights included Zap-Map, the generator’s EV charging arm, launching Zap-Pay, a cross-platform payment solution across EV charging networks. Good Energy converted its initial investment into a majority 50.1% equity stake in June 2020. Other key partnerships signed.
Ensek, a business billing platform, was introduced to offer speedier and fuller transparency for business customers.
At a glance, Good Energy’s 2020 results are:
| Period ended 31 December
£m* |
FY 2020 Underlying continued operations |
FY 2020
Non underlying |
FY 2020
Reported |
FY 2019
Underlying continued operations |
| Revenue | £130.6m | £0.0m | £130.6m | £124.3m |
| Gross Profit | £29.6m | £0.0m | £29.6m | £31.7m |
| Administration costs | £(25.0)m | £(0.5)m | £(25.5)m | £(25.2)m |
| Operating profit | £4.5m | £(0.5)m | £4.1m | £6.4m |
| Profit before tax | £0.4m | £(0.5)m | £(0.1)m | £2.1m |
| Profit after tax | £0.4m | £(0.5)m | £(0.1)m | £1.9m |
| Cash and cash equivalents | £18.3m | £18.3m | £13.7m | |
| Net debt | £34.6m | £41.6m | ||
| Basic (loss) / earnings per share (p) | 3.3p | 0.4p | 7.5p | |
| Full Year dividend per share (p) | – | – | 3.5p |
Source: Good Energy
