Good Energy says that shareholders representing at least 15.30% of its share capital have given assurances that they will not accept a hostile offer made by Ecotricity. That includes six shareholders representing approximately 10.96% of the share capital and shares held by directors who will not be accept the offer.
In an update Good Energy’s board said Ecotricity, which has made an offer of 340 pence per share, was an “an unfit owner with an unsuitable plan”. It said, “Ecotricity’s poor business condition means it is an unfit owner for the company”. It said Good Energy was “delivering on its modern, digital strategy”, which it described as “very different to Ecotricity’s out-dated, centralised business model”.
Will Whitehorn, chair of Good Energy, said: “Ecotricity wishes to make Good Energy a renewable generation developer again, an approach we moved away from a number of years ago in favour of supporting small-scale renewable generators through long-term power purchase contracts.
“Ecotricity believes we can compete more effectively together as genuinely green suppliers in a market of similar-looking products. This is something Good Energy is already effectively doing by itself, as the only supplier with Uswitch Green Tariff Gold Standard accreditation for all its tariffs.”
He added, “Ecotricity has been a loss-making business for the past four years. Its claim that they consider us ‘sister companies, with more in common than separates us’, is contradicted by their history as a disruptive shareholder, voting down 100% of our proposed special resolutions….
“Ecotricity has offered little insight on its own corporate governance and how the businesses would be run going forward. The Board believes that if this takeover were successful and the company de-listed, key decision making would ultimately rest with one individual which would not be in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders.”