Ecotricity Acquires 6.8% Stake In Competitor Good Energy

The UK-based renewable energy utility firm Ecotricity has acquired a 6.8% stake in its competitor Good Energy, according to recent reports.

The 6.8%–stake acquisition — which appears to have taken place sometime during the first 2–3 months of 2016 — means that Ecotricity is now the second-biggest shareholder in Good Energy. News of the deal first appeared on Good Energy’s website back in mid-March.

Notably, the news means that Ecotricity now actually holds a bigger stake in Good Energy than even the company’s founder and CEO Juliet Davenport does (a 4% stake).

The investment comes right around the same time as Legal and General Investment has cut its investment in Good Energy to less than 3% (the cutoff point for listed investors) — down from 6.82% at the end of December 2015.

A Good Energy spokesperson spoke to Business Green and noted: “In line with Alternative Investment Market rules, on March 16 2016 we announced that Ecotricity notified us that they had purchased 6.82% of Good Energy shares,” he told BusinessGreen. “Good Energy Group is rated as a ‘buy’ by the four analysts that follow Good Energy — Cantor Fitzgerald, Investec, Alpha Deal Group, and Arden — so it doesn’t surprise us that investors are buying shares.”

While Ecotricity reps publicly declined to comment, it appears that there are no plans for a takeover bid of any kind, according to unnamed sources.

It’s worth mentioning here that the two firms have publicly traded a number of barbs in recent years. With Good Energy reps even announcing as recently as April “plans to challenge Ecotricity’s claim that it supplies ‘Britain’s greenest energy’.”