Bulb’s biggest lender swoops in to switch administrator of energy firm’s parent company

Bulb Energy’s (Bulb) biggest lender dramatically switched the administrators of its parent company yesterday.

The move was a last ditch bid to protect its £55m exposure to the doomed energy supplier.

The Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Fund (Sequoia) blocked plans for AlixPartners to become Simply Energy’s administrator, and lined up Interpath Advisory to handle its insolvency instead, according to Sky News.

AlixPartners was reportedly removed from its role as Simple Energy’s administrator-in-waiting because Sequoia doubted its independence.

The inflamed eleventh-hour chapter to the sorry story follows Bulb entering administration on Monday, and announcing plans to separately place parent company Simply Energy into insolvency.

Bulb, which is Britain’s seventh-largest domestic energy supplier, is the latest in a line of more than 20 suppliers to collapse since the start of August.

Both Lazard and AlixPartners were working with Bulb prior to its collapse.

Ofgem asks court to sign off new Bulb administrator

Simple Energy and Bulb are being dealt with separately

Market regulator Ofgem asked the court to separately appoint an administrator to doomed energy supplier Bulb yesterday, after its fall from grace left 1.7m customers to an uncertain fate amid a deepening winter energy crisis.

The crippled challenger company revealed it only has £8.5m left in its dwindling coffers, as it prepares to enter special administration after the government backed Ofgem’s request to begin a special process.

The measures could de-facto nationalise the failed firm and leave it in the hands of administrators, propped up by public money in the form of grants and loans from the Business Department.

If the court approves Ofgem’s request, Bulb will separately be placed into administrator Teneo’s guding hands, with the company still operating throughout the winter.

Unlike the 21 energy firms that ceased operations over the past three months amid soaring wholesale costs, Bulb is too big for the supplier of last resort process where Ofgem simply allocates customers to new homes. The largest firm to cease trading – Avro Energy – had only a third of the customers.

Instead it will be placed on an extensive life-support, with the taxpayer potentially providing regular injections of public funds until its long-term fate is decided.

Sky News understands that Lazard, the US investment bank, is likely to be asked by the administrators to oversee an auction of the business over the coming months.

It has spent the past few months trying to secure new funds for Bulb in vain.

Competitors such as Octopus Energy, OVO Energy and Shell Energy Retail are expected to re-examine bids for the firm.