Good Energy offered Ecotricity the resignation of its chairman in return for dropping its opposition to Good Energy’s plans to sell its renewable assets, Ecotricity’s founder has told Utility Week.
In November, Good Energy announced plans to sell its entire 47.5MW portfolio of renewable generation assets as part of a strategic shift towards energy services.
On 24 December, Ecotricity issued a requisition notice to Good Energy, of which it owns a 25% stake, requiring its rival to convene an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of shareholders to consider removing chairman Will Whitehorn from office, as well as a special resolution to require shareholder approval before it disposes of its generation assets.
The Good Energy board recommended shareholders vote against both resolutions and cited Whitehorn’s “extensive experience” in technology, as well as the company’s belief that a move to a more decentralised model was a positive step forward.
“The board believes Ecotricity’s actions are motivated by its position as a competitor of the company and that it is seeking to block the company’s ability to push forward with its successful modern, digital first strategy for the benefit of all shareholders,” Good Energy said in a circular.
The two retailers have been in talks over the past several weeks.
Speaking to Utility Week, Ecotricity boss Dale Vince said: “We’ve been talking to Good Energy most of January, at their request, to try and avoid the EGM. In the process of that, they offered us the resignation of the chairman Will Whitehorn – if we dropped our opposition to their plans to sell generation.
“From our perspective, that makes no sense – selling generation means the company has no real future as a green energy company – so we rejected that offer yesterday and in response they have gone public with the usual claims of disruptive behaviour and so on.”
The two companies have been at loggerheads for several months after Ecotricity unveiled a £56 million takeover bid.
Vince said: “We simply made a proposition and said if we put our two companies together, we can create a green player of some significance in the market able to wrestle the greenwashing narrative more successfully than we can do individually. There was an historically high price offer for shares as well – a good opportunity for shareholders to make some money and create a genuine green contender.
“The board’s response to that was nakedly hostile. They came out and said that we weren’t fit to run the company, which was an incredibly unprofessional, pejorative thing to say. But that was the tone of it. We have been a shareholder for five years and the board have always been hostile to our shareholding.”
Utility Week contacted Good Energy for a response but none had been received at the time of publication.