The only easy decision for Bulb’s future: stop paying its CEO

theguardian.com:

Five months after special administrators were appointed at Bulb in an act of quasi-nationalisation, the government is discovering a few truths that should have been obvious on day one.

There isn’t a long queue of would-be buyers willing to pay good money for a failed energy supplier with 1.7 million customers when wholesale markets are still in turmoil. Taxpayers’ financial exposure is only increasing with every passing month. And semi-state ownership brings some level of ministerial responsibility for how the business is run, including the inexplicable decision to continue paying Hayden Wood, co-founder and chief executive, his £250,000 salary as if nothing had happened.

“We do not want this company to be in this temporary state longer than is absolutely necessary,” Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, told parliament last November when announcing the administration. The initial advance of £1.7bn of public money was intended to cover Bulb’s working capital requirements for six months, which seemed to be the soft deadline for getting rid of the problem.

That deadline is unlikely to be met, though a summer exit is still possible. However, neither interested party named by the Sunday Times can be regarded as unproblematic. Passing Bulb to Centrica, the owner of British Gas, would entrench the market leader’s dominance and, even in an emergency that has demonstrated the benefit of having well-capitalised suppliers that don’t fall over, ministers are still supposed to have half an eye on long-term competition. The other reported runner is Masdar, out of Abu Dhabi, which offers no experience of the UK retail energy market.

Other parties could still emerge, but the burning question is whether a “sale” of Bulb would merit the