Energy supplier Bulb is reportedly on the brink of collapse amid eleventh-hour talks between the government and its biggest secured creditor.
According to Sky News, Bulb is expected to appoint insolvency practitioners imminently. The precise timing remained unclear due to the complexity of the looming administration process and ongoing talks between the government and Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund, which has an outstanding secured loan of roughly £50m to Bulb’s parent company Simple Energy.
Sky said Sequoia was understood to have demanded the repayment of its loan prior to Bulb being placed into administration.
A range of government departments and industry regulator Ofgem began accelerating contingency plans for the collapse of Bulb last month.
Sky also said on Monday that Bulb executives and their advisors have been working on an emergency sale of the company, with the likes of Octopus Energy, Ovo Energy, Shell Energy Retail and British Gas owner Centrica expressing an interest.
The energy firm has also made a series of requests to the government in the last few weeks to help it structure a rescue support package, but these have been rejected, according to Sky sources.
Bulb is the UK’s seventh-largest supplier, with 1.7m customers.
