Hard cash behind maverick leading the battle for Bulb

As loss-making energy firm Octopus cuts deal with Ministers

MOST of us know it as the upstart energy supplier with a cuddly eight-limbed mollusc as its mascot. Octopus Energy champions windfarms, has nothing good to say about ‘dirty gas’ and counts climate change campaigner and former US presidential hopeful Al Gore as a backer.

But the company, still only seven years old, is now muscling in on the big boys, including British Gas and Germany’s Eon.

Octopus’s controversial taxpayerbacked deal to snap up 1.5million customers from collapsed firm Bulb looks set to catapult it firmly into the list of top three UK suppliers. The agreement with Ministers has ruffled feathers among its well-established rivals – decades-old energy giants which have launched a legal battle over claims the deal is shrouded in secrecy.

All this has been achieved despite the company never having turned a profit and with a mop-topped maverick boss from Saltburn near Middlesbrough at the helm, Greg Jackson – whose floppy hair is more Damon Albarn from Blur than energy mogul.

Critics wonder how long the meteoric rise of Octopus can last while dozens of other challenger energy firms, many created with little more than a laptop in backwater industrial estates, have collapsed since 2019.

Bulb was the largest energy failure, with a bailout that cost the taxpayer £6.5billion. But, unlike the

‘Taxpayer deal may end in a judicial review’

army of casualties, there is a global financial network behind Octopus’s cartoon image and British charm. It was initially set up with the backing of Octopus Capital, which was created by entrepreneurs Simon Rogerson and Chris Hulatt in 2000.

Little is known of Hulatt, who donated £2,500 to Tory MP Bim Afolami in 2020 and whose interests include ‘championing small business’ and ‘healthcare’.

Rogerson, a keen triathlete, has said his first job was selling household cleaning products door to door despite a public schoolboy background. That was before he moved into asset management.

Octopus Energy’s backers also include Al Gore’s Generation Investment, a Canadian pension fund, Australia’s Origin Energy and Tokyo Gas – a £12billion energy conglomerate from Japan.

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show that Octopus Capital, which has sourced most of its turnover from its energy arm of the same name, paid out a £17.6million dividend last year.

By contrast, its namesake energy business made a loss of £31million on £2 billion turnover. Octopus Capital said the dividend did not relate to its energy business and that it has since overhauled the ownership structure.

As for Jackson, who launched Octopus Energy after a meeting with Rogerson in 2015, his roots are relatively humble. He grew up in the North East to a single mother who worked as a barmaid and he attended the local comprehensive school. He worked hard and got a place at Cambridge University, where he ended up top of his class in economics. A handful of solo ventures followed – he even bought the local coffee shop. But his real flair is for technology.

He created the Labour Party’s entire online infrastructure and was employed as a non-executive director for Left-wing news site Labour List.

His career began to accelerate rapidly with the launch of Octopus in 2016, now valued at over £4billion. It has taken Jackson from corporate obscurity to energy big shot in less than a decade.

When asked in 2018 if his firm made any money, Jackson was obliged to reveal the cold, hard cash that props up the business.

‘By the way,’ he told sceptical MPs, ‘we are backed by a very large investment fund.’

The Government recently selected Jackson’s firm as the best place for Bulb’s customers – cold-shouldering a proposal from British Gas owner Centrica. Are rivals right to be angry at a taxpayer-funded dowry – Octopus was reportedly asking for £1billion – that some say may never be paid back?

The unseemly spat has been further fuelled by accusations that the deal with Ministers is not transparent enough. It could even lead to a judicial review that might plunge Bulb back into ‘special administration’ – where it has wallowed for the past year.

Jackson has previously argued that it is a ‘fair deal for taxpayers’ but – following weeks of criticism from competitors – this weekend felt he needed to go further. ‘They were all offered repeatedly the chance to participate,’ he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘They then wait right until the end and essentially try to use the courts.’

Jackson said he is disappointed, but not surprised, by the actions of his under-siege competitors – many of which have lost large swathes of customers since Octopus’s arrival.

Scottish Power, Centrica – which has lost a third of its customers in the past decade – and Eon have all teamed up in an attempt to halt the acquisition. Jackson said this ‘shows what customers have known for a long time’.

‘We are competing to make the industry better for customers but it has been a cosy club,’ he said.

‘My main thought was that this was the same old behaviour.’

Octopus prides itself on better customer service than its counterparts and Jackson has criticised rivals that ‘could do dramatically better’. He said: ‘If you look at their performance on any of the review sites, they are poor or getting worse.

‘During the energy crisis people need help and support. They don’t need companies with poor service and it is getting worse.

‘That should be the real battleground, not the court.’