OMG, SSE 's profit for last year, a meagre £1.5 BILLION!!

mex

mex

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SSE have just announced their annual profit to March, a meagre £1.5 billion. How do the heads of the companies sleep at night? There are now record numbers of people in fuel poverty,with OAP's who cannot afford to heat their homes ,yet energy companies are allowed to increase their tarifs by a little under 10% . I find this news absolutely appaling.
 
Yup. Our gas and elec bill (from SSE) only continues to go up.

I'm in two minds on this though, on one hand they are a profit driven business. On the other like you say they're fleecing the elderly and less fortunate.
 
Its totally and utterly unacceptable profiteering in a captive market. Will anything ever get done to change it? Dont hold your breath.
 
Oh come on, be fair guys it is a "very challenging time for the energy sector" after all!

and

"the company's commitment to freeze energy tariffs until 2016 would reduce profits by £100 million" :(

So, profits up in one year by £150 million, potentially reduced by £100 million over two years = they're still potentially £200 million better off on top of the £1.5 billion come 2016, my heart bleeds for them it really does.
 
Except that profit didn't come from its retail operations.
 
It is not a lot when you have a Board or Directors than need feeding

Old Joke: Q: what is the difference between a Non Exec Director and a supermarket trolly
A: You can get more food into a non Exec director at Lunchtime

(I have been a Non-Exec director)
 
It's certainly an interesting one, doing a little reasearch suggest that this profit figure equates to a profit percentage on turnover of 4.6% which as a figure could never be considered profiteering IMO no one like big bills but the reality is if the price of the product goes up these companies are ultimately there to make money, if you want to reduce your bill you could always buy shares in these companies and use your annual dividend to of set some of the cost of the bills
 
4.6% = looks quite acceptable

however when its written like this it is not ,£150,000,000,000 and at a time when we, the masses, are being fleeced by governments,banks,energy companies and others it becomes a very bitter pill to swallow
 
MWHCVT said:
It's certainly an interesting one, doing a little reasearch suggest that this profit figure equates to a profit percentage on turnover of 4.6% which as a figure could never be considered profiteering IMO no one like big bills but the reality is if the price of the product goes up these companies are ultimately there to make money, if you want to reduce your bill you could always buy shares in these companies and use your annual dividend to of set some of the cost of the bills
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Out of interest, where is the reinvestment into new power stations and supplies? Why are the Chinese bidding to build the new power supplies and lease them. Are these companies actual produces or power or just resellers?
 
Byker28i said:
Out of interest, where is the reinvestment into new power stations and supplies? Why are the Chinese bidding to build the new power supplies and lease them. Are these companies actual produces or power or just resellers?
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I have no idea is the honest answer I was just attempting to add a little balance to the thread, as a big number can look really bad until placed into a little context
 
But why do private companies own the Gas and Electricity supply network? Then ask why does HMRC charge VAT on these essential utilities?
 
MWHCVT said:
I have no idea is the honest answer I was just attempting to add a little balance to the thread, as a big number can look really bad until placed into a little context
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So I started googling...

SSE bought FerryBridge - they say - "We've invested"
http://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/thermal/fiddlersferry/

However, as this guardian report states, rather than invest, they are closing many oif the power stations they own
http://www.theguardian.com/business...oal-fired-power-stations-ferrybridge-uskmouth

Why spend money making new, or cleaner power stations, when you can resell and make lots of profit...
 
mex said:
SSE have just announced their annual profit to March, a meagre £1.5 billion. How do the heads of the companies sleep at night? There are now record numbers of people in fuel poverty,with OAP's who cannot afford to heat their homes ,yet energy companies are allowed to increase their tarifs by a little under 10% . I find this news absolutely appaling.
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<sarc>
That is appalling. When will it end. 1.5 billion!!! Why that would pay for 18.75 hours of government.
</sarc>

Regards...
 
ST4 said:
Company's exisit to make profits, its what they are about.
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It is what they are about, and when its in a fair market place with _competition_ and things like that it works well. Not a captive audience who have no choice but to keep coughing up ever increasing amounts of money to keep the profits of what should be a state owned business in 9 figures. But thanks for your input anyway.

Don't like it, fit some solar panels to your home and become less dependent on SSE
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If I could afford it believe me I would.
 
DorsetDude said:
It is what they are about, and when its in a fair market place with _competition_ and things like that it works well. Not a captive audience who have no choice but to keep coughing up ever increasing amounts of money to keep the profits of what should be a state owned business in 9 figures. But thanks for your input anyway.
.
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yep, they have us by the balls, but at the end of the day, other than switch provider who will also diddle you, what can you do. We don't have nationalised power, its all privatised, and the private sector survives and thrives purely on the profit it makes not the good of the people it serves.

Hence, my comment, try go green with panels etc. I cannot afford panels either, but would love them.
 
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mex said:
4.6% = looks quite acceptable

however when its written like this it is not ,£150,000,000,000 and at a time when we, the masses, are being fleeced by governments,banks,energy companies and others it becomes a very bitter pill to swallow
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[daily mail] It's media scandal (and a lot of money)... What sells newspapers..

a) Energy company makes 4.6% profit?

b) Energy company makes £1,500,000,000*

* that can pay for x nurses, y eurofighters and z schools... [/daily mail]
 
DorsetDude said:
It is what they are about, and when its in a fair market place with _competition_ and things like that it works well. Not a captive audience who have no choice but to keep coughing up ever increasing amounts of money to keep the profits of what should be a state owned business in 9 figures. But thanks for your input anyway.


If I could afford it believe me I would.
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Not advocating them but uswitch? Pretty sure you can swap however some horror stories. I am a friend of the CS Director at E.on, next time I see him, I'll ask how to go about it easily.
 
DorsetDude said:
It is what they are about, and when its in a fair market place with _competition_ and things like that it works well. Not a captive audience who have no choice but to keep coughing up ever increasing amounts of money to keep the profits of what should be a state owned business in 9 figures. But thanks for your input anyway.


If I could afford it believe me I would.
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Do you honestly think things would be any different if all these companies were renationalised?
 
MWHCVT said:
Do you honestly think things would be any different if all these companies were renationalised?
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Yes.
There's no reason at all that they couldn't be run efficiently but with the profits going back into the UK coffers instead of shareholders pockets.
And the same goes for Rail, Water, NHS, in fact all of the UK's basic infrastructure.
 
bindex said:
Yes.
There's no reason at all that they couldn't be run efficiently but with the profits going back into the UK coffers instead of shareholders pockets.
And the same goes for Rail, Water, NHS, in fact all of the UK's basic infrastructure.
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See I just don't believe they can, public sector I'm sorry breads inefficiency and complacency...I've seen it myself why do you think it's so often cheaper to pay a profit making company to provide a public service than it is to have a local authority provide the self same service...

Public Sector always has too many layers of management for a start...
 
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It's sad but I've got to agree with Matt, all the public owed industries of the past were run with a political agenda rather than a business one so we paid for it with our taxes instead of at the point of sale.
 
bindex said:
Yes.
There's no reason at all that they couldn't be run efficiently but with the profits going back into the UK coffers instead of shareholders pockets.
And the same goes for Rail, Water, NHS, in fact all of the UK's basic infrastructure.
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Yes there is a reason. If your argument were true then existing government services would be run efficiently. They are not. Government is a bureaucracy which is a byword for inefficiency. The cost and, often appalling, service level of existing services prove this beyond a doubt.

Regards...
 
OK, slightly off topic but just as an example of how nationalised industries can be effective and efficient...

East Coast Mainline, operating from London to Edinburgh through centres including Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, York and Newcastle, was renationalised in 2009 after privateer National Express proved incapable of operating the network efficiently or viably. It has since been run by an arm of the Department of Transport.

Under public ownership it has paid £200 million a year into the Treasury and pumped money into service improvements. It also won the highest levels of passenger satisfaction of any service in Europe.

Oh... and yes... they're trying to sell it off again into private hands. You couldn't make it up.
 
Every ideological fibre of my being wants all major infrastructure in the public sector.

Sadly, having worked in both the public and private sectors, I have to accept that would be unrealistic for all sorts of reasons.

I'm not even slightly bothered by the headline profit BTW. To put it into context, in 2011 Apple made 26 billion profit. Gazprom 44.4 billion. (From Fortune 500)
 
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bindex said:
OK, slightly off topic but just as an example of how nationalised industries can be effective and efficient...

East Coast Mainline, operating from London to Edinburgh through centres including Peterborough, Doncaster, Leeds, York and Newcastle, was renationalised in 2009 after privateer National Express proved incapable of operating the network efficiently or viably. It has since been run by an arm of the Department of Transport.

Under public ownership it has paid £200 million a year into the Treasury and pumped money into service improvements. It also won the highest levels of passenger satisfaction of any service in Europe.

Oh... and yes... they're trying to sell it off again into private hands. You couldn't make it up.
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And how many examples of complete and utter catastrophes are there?
 
Well we're never going to agree Matt :) but that's ok. I've no doubt we could both go on and on about it!

regards

Bill
 
If you can't afford solar panels, there are companies that will lease your roof space and install the panels for free.

They sell the generated energy to the energy companies and you benefit from reduced bills.
 
simon ess said:
To put it into context, in 2011 Apple made 26 billion profit. (From Fortune 500)
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And I dont have any problem at all with that. People are free to go out and choose whether or not they want to buy an apple product or not. People, in general, are not free to choose whether they want to buy electric or gas. They can choose which energy company they want to be fleeced by this year but thats about it.
 
ecoleman said:
If you can't afford solar panels, there are companies that will lease your roof space and install the panels for free.

They sell the generated energy to the energy companies and you benefit from reduced bills.
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I looked into buying the panels or renting my roof.
Buying would take me approx 8-9.5 years to pay off the £20K investment (roof and garage roof south facing) without any maintenance costs, the rent your roof companies wanted the space for 25 years.
It'll be something I consider for my next, final move, but not now.
 
Don't like it? Change your supplier. If people actually did this instead of just whinging and staying with their existing supplier then they would be forced to compete more aggressively on price.
 
mid_gen said:
Don't like it? Change your supplier. If people actually did this instead of just whinging and staying with their existing supplier then they would be forced to compete more aggressively on price.
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I change every year or two. Im still being ripped off as they are all near as dammit the same bloody prices.
 
It takes more than just a few people though. The problem is that most people don't bother.
 
So what is a fair profit?

In principle I would agree that having a monopoly like this owned by government would be a good thing, although chances are it would be so badly run that the cost of energy would be the same for us. Councils and governments don't run efficiently.
 
While we are moaning about the profit - I wonder how much HMRC get from the VAT element of the whole turnover from utilities companies ?
 
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ecoleman said:
If you can't afford solar panels, there are companies that will lease your roof space and install the panels for free.

They sell the generated energy to the energy companies and you benefit from reduced bills.
Click to expand...

Only if the pitch of your roof faces the right direction.
 
LASTOLITE said:
While we are moaning about the profit - I wonder how much HMRC get from the VAT element of the whole turnover from utilities companies ?
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In SSE's case, £1.5 billion is their profit. If they still had to pay VAT on it it wouldnt be all profit so I am going to assume they already paid it, which means the 1.5 is after VAT. i.e. its 4/5ths of what they had before VAT. So 1/4th of 1.5 Bill is £375 million. So thats what HMRC got off SSE last year in VAT. Add in the other Big '5' and its looking close to £2 bn.
 
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