British Gas owner Centrica announces the sale of its Peterborough site (British GasConnections Limited – BGCL) for £20 million — subject to customary working capital and other completion adjustments — to Whitetower Holdings, an affiliate company.
“The sale is consistent with Centrica’s strategy to become a simpler, leaner group focused on delivering for its customers and its target to be net zero by 2045,” Centrica said in a press release, and shared their goals earlier this year in the sale of another business commodity. “This sale is an important step in the turnaround of Centrica, allowing us to materially strengthen our balance sheet and become a more focused energy services and solutions company – putting customers at the heart of everything we do and helping them transition to a lower carbon future.”
BGCL is a company with an ambitious future. They have 139,000 properties that are served by their networks and they also hold 35,000 orders in the pipeline for new connections to be completed on behalf of New Housing Connections
The sale of BGCL was made following a strategic review that highlighted an accumulation in profits, with £3.9million being generated from the company’s operations last year alone. The success is also made evident by their revenue and earnings before interest, taxes depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) numbers as well: at 8.8 million pounds for turnover and £6.4 million pounds respectively.
The site is a haven for those looking to make power. With freehold land, the 245MW Peterborough open cycle gas turbine and a 49MW reciprocating gas engine available here, it seems that buyers have themselves quite a deal.
Centrica is committed to making sure that energy supply and consumption of the site will be consistent, even after they have sold it, and plan to continue providing optimisation services after the final sale in September.
The company said the sale is in line with its strategy to become a simpler group aimed at delivering its target of becoming net zero by 2045.
Centrica also revealed plans to sell Direct Energy to the US energy company NRG Energy alongside its latest financial result, which revealed falling earnings over the first half of this year due to a recent pandemic and losses at British Gas.