Ovo Energy tycoon flies into taxi trouble

Audit warning is blow to Fitzpatrick

FRESH financial problems have blown up in the corporate empire of the billionaire who owns Britain’s fourth largest energy firm Ovo, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Auditors have warned there is a ‘material uncertainty’ that Stephen Fitzpatrick’s flying taxi firm Vertical Aerospace can continue as a ‘going concern’ unless it receives new capital.

Fitzpatrick, pictured below, supplies energy to 4.5million homes through Ovo. Vertical Aerospace, which is registered in the Cayman Islands and listed in New York, has racked up almost £200million in losses in just two years.

Ovo’s parent company, Imagination Industries, posted profits of £377million in its last accounts for 2021, but recorded £300million of losses for the previous three years.

Imagination’s finances have caused growing controversy in recent years. This newspaper revealed in 2022 that the Ovo parent shelled out £27million in loans to its directors, while handing Vertical Aerospace nearly £10million.

There is no suggestion that the loans were unlawful or breached any financial rules, but the amounts were unusual.

Belfast-born Fitzpatrick, a former City trader, founded Ovo in 2009. The Sunday Times Rich List 2023 claimed he is worth £2.2 billion.

His reported wealth increased significantly over the past year while customers battled to pay rocketing gas and electric bills. Last winter some Ovo customers were left without heating, hot water and lighting in freezing temperatures.

Fitzpatrick, who once owned a Formula 1 team, recently bought the Kensington Roof Gardens party venue – formerly owned by Sir Richard Branson – and he is lavishing millions of pounds on a luxury makeover.

He wants to transform it into an exclusive private members’ club. Vertical Aerospace has been likened to

Elon Musk’s Tesla by chief technology officer Michael Cervenka, but the latest warnings raise doubts about the company’s future.

The firm’s UK accounts, signed off earlier this month, cover the

12 months ending December 2022. Its auditors PwC said that Vertical Aerospace must ‘raise additional capital’ to secure its long-term future, as the existence of a material uncertainty ‘may cast significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern’.

Vertical Aerospace’s accounts show that one of its four directors, Harry Holt, resigned from the business after just a month last year. Holt was brought in from RollsRoyce as chief operating officer.

The MoS can also reveal that chief financial officer John Martin recently left the business despite joining just four months ago.

Earlier this month Vertical Aerospace reported widening losses of £23 million for the first three months of 2023, compared with £18 million during the same period last year. The company has not yet developed a manufacturing facility and planning remains at the concept stage.

Vertical Aerospace received a £14million grant from the UK’s publicly funded Aerospace Technology Institute this year.

Since floating in the US in 2021, it has seen its value plunge from almost £2billion down to a little more than £300 million.

A spokesman for the firm said: ‘Vertical is developing a fully-electric fiveperson aircraft and like any other pioneering technology-led business we would expect to be loss making

at this stage.’