Amber Rudd, the former cabinet minister, is joining a new special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that will float in London and target a merger in the renewable energy sector.
Sky News has learnt that Ms Rudd, who served as secretary of state for energy and climate change between May 2015 and July 2016, is to become an adviser to Energy1, one of a hotly anticipated wave of new UK SPACs.
Banking sources said that Energy1 was being established by Sanjay Mehta, a start-up investor, and David Kotler, a former Lazard and Morgan Stanley investment banker who now runs Access Corporate Finance, an energy and natural resources advisory firm.
Philip Aiken, the chairman of London-listed Aveva and former chairman of Balfour Beatty, is expected to join Energy1’s board, while Sir Peter Gershon, the former National Grid chairman, is understood to be in talks to become an adviser to the SPAC alongside Ms Rudd, according to the sources.
The new SPAC will look to raise between £250m and £300m from investors, they added.
Advertisement
Citi and JP Morgan are understood to have been hired to advise on the listing, with an announcement targeted by the end of the year.
Ms Rudd’s involvement will again underline the extent to which senior former politicians are capitalising on their Westminster careers.
More on Amber Rudd
Related Topics:
As well as serving as energy and climate change secretary, Ms Rudd spent just under two years as home secretary, while she stepped down from her final cabinet role as work and pensions secretary in September 2019.
Since stepping down as an MP before the 2019 general election, she has landed advisory roles with Darktrace, the cybersecurity company which has enjoyed one of London’s most successful initial public offerings (IPOs) this year, and Pinwheel, a green electricity start-up.
The roles were all approved by Whitehall’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), but Ms Rudd’s new posts no longer require such approval owing to the length of time since she ceased being a government minister.
Image: Rudd stepped down as an MP before the 2019 general election. Pic: REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
This week, Ms Rudd quit Teneo Advisory, the public relations firm, to join FGH, the agency founded by her brother, Roland.
Her role at Energy1 adds substantial political experience to a vehicle harbouring ambitions of pioneering a new era of London-listed SPACs.
In July, the Financial Conduct Authority published new rules aimed at making the UK a more competitive destination for such “blank cheque” vehicles, which raise money from investors to acquire an unspecified target.
London has been left behind by New York, and to some extent by Amsterdam, because of the more liberal framework for enabling SPACs to list, although in the last year there have been signs of considerable indigestion in US markets, with many falling sharply within a year of their mergers being completed.
Nevertheless, bankers say there has been a spurt in the number of enquiries from SPAC “sponsors” wanting to list in London once the listing reforms are implemented.
Sky News reported on Friday that a pair of insurance executives plan to list Financials Acquisition Corp on the London Stock Exchange’s standard segment, and have received cornerstone commitments from investors including Qatar Insurance Company and Toscafund.
A swathe of renewable energy-focused SPACs has sought to take advantage of booming investor demand for companies which can play important roles in the energy transition.
Several leading British cleantech companies will be showcased at the forthcoming Global Investment Summit, while next month’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow will be deluged by technology companies and investors.
Tony Hayward, the former BP chief executive, has listed a SPAC in Amsterdam called Energy Transition Partners to target a deal in the renewables or battery technology sector.
None of those involved in Energy1 could be reached for comment.
Ryanair staff are to get more money for spotting and charging for oversized baggage, the company’s chief executive has said.
Michael O’Leary said he made “absolutely no apology” for catching people who are “scamming the system”.
The reward for intercepting passengers travelling with bags larger than permitted will increase from €1.50 (£1.29) to €2.50 (£2.15) per bag in November, and the monthly €80 (£68.95) payment cap will be scrapped, Mr O’Leary said.
At present, the budget airline allows travellers a free 40cm x 30cm x 20cm bag, which can fit under the seat in front, and charges for further luggage up to 55cm x 40cm x 20cm in size.
Customers face fines of up to £75 for an oversized item if it is brought to the boarding gate.
“I make absolutely no apology for it whatsoever”, Mr O’Leary said.
“I am still mystified by the number of people with rucksacks who still think they’re going to get through the gate and we won’t notice the rucksack”, he added.
More on Ryanair
Related Topics:
Around 200,000 passengers per year are charged bag fees at airport gates.
“We have more work to do to get rid of them”, Mr O’Leary said.
“We are running a very efficient, very affordable, very low-cost airline, and we’re not letting anybody get in the way.”
The airline does not support a European Union proposal to ensure customers get a free cabin bag, he said.
Air fares
After a 7% fall in air fares for the year to 31 March, Mr O’Leary said he expected ticket prices to go back up this financial year.
“We expect to get most of last year’s 7% decline, but not all,” he told reporters in a news conference.
“We have sold about 70% of our September seats, but we have another 30% to sell, and it’s those last fares, what people pay for all those last-minute bookings through the remainder of September, that will ultimately determine what average airfares are.”
A larger than expected hike in the energy price cap from October is largely down to higher costs being imposed by the government.
The typical sum households face paying for gas and electricity when using direct debit is to rise by 2% – or £2.93 per month – to £1,755, the energy watchdog Ofgem announced.
The latest bill settlement, covering the final quarter of the year until the next price review takes effect from January, will affect around 20 million households.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:57
Bills must rise to pay for energy transition
The discount is set to add £15 to the average annual bill.
It will provide £150 in support to 2.7 million extra people this year, bringing the total number of beneficiaries to six million.
The balance is made up from money needed to upgrade the power network.
Tim Jarvis, director general of markets at Ofgem, said: “While there is still more to do, we are seeing signs of a healthier market. There are more people on fixed tariffs saving themselves money, switching is rising as options for consumers increase, and we’ve seen increases in customer satisfaction, alongside a reduction in complaints.
“While today’s change is below inflation, we know customers might not be feeling it in their pockets. There are things you can do though – consider a fixed tariff as this could save more than £200 against the new cap. Paying by direct debit or smart pay as you go could also save you money.
“In the longer term, we will continue to see fluctuations in our energy prices until we are insulated from volatile international gas markets. That’s why we continue to work with government and the sector to diversify our energy mix to reduce the reliance on markets we do not control.”
The looming price cap lift will leave bills around the same sort of level they were in October last year but it will take hold at a time when overall inflation is higher.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:09
Inflation has gone up again – this explains why
Food price increases, also partly blamed on government measures such as the national insurance contributions hike imposed on employers, have led the main consumer prices index to a current level of 3.8%.
It is predicted to rise to at least 4% in the coming months, further squeezing household budgets.
Ministers argue that efforts to make the UK less reliant on natural gas, through investment in renewable power sources, will help bring down bills in future.
Energy minister Michael Shanks said: “We know that any price rise is a concern for families. Wholesale gas prices remain 75% above their levels before Russia invaded Ukraine. That is the fossil fuel penalty being paid by families, businesses and our economy.
“That is why the only answer for Britain is this government’s mission to get us off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, homegrown power we control, to bring down bills for good.
“At the same time, we are determined to take urgent action to support vulnerable families this winter. That includes expanding the £150 Warm Home Discount to 2.7 million more households and stepping up our overhaul of the energy system to increase protections for customers.”
The small increase in domestic energy bills announced today confirms that prices have stabilised since the ruinous spikes that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but remain 40% higher than before the war – around 20% in real terms – with little chance of falling in the medium-term.
Any increase in the annual cost of gas and electricity is unwelcome. But, at 2%, it is so marginal that in practice many consumers will not notice it unless they pay close attention to their consumption.
Regulator Ofgem uses a notional figure for “typical” annual consumption of gas and electricity to capture the impact of price change, which shows a £34 increase to £1,755.
At less than £3 a month it’s a small increase that could be wiped out by a warm week in October, doubled by an early cold snap, and only applies to those households that pay a variable rate for their power.
That number is declining as 37% of customers now take advantage of cheaper fixed rate deals that have returned to the market, as well as direct debit payments, options often not available to those struggling most.
Ofgem’s headline number is useful as a guide but what really counts is how much energy you use, and the cap the regulator applies to the underlying unit prices and standing charges.
More on Energy Price Cap
Related Topics:
Here the maximum chargeable rate for electricity rises from 25.73p per kWh to 26.35p, while the unit cost of gas actually falls, from 6.33p per kWh to 6.26p. Daily standing charges for both increase however, by a total of 7p.
That increase provides an insight into the factors that will determine prices today and in future.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
3:36
Energy price cap rises by 2%
The biggest factor remains the international price of wholesale gas. It was what drove prices north of £4,000 a year after the pipelines to Russia were turned off, and has dragged them back down as Norway and liquid natural gas imported from the US, Australia and Qatar filled the gap.
The long-term solution is to replace reliance on gas with renewable and low-carbon sources of energy but shifting the balance comes with an up-front cost shared by all bill payers. So too is the cost of energy poverty that has soared since 2022.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:57
Bills must rise to pay for energy transition
This price cap includes an increase to cover “balancing costs”. These are fees typically paid to renewable generators to stop producing electricity because the national grid can’t always handle the transfer of power from Scotland, where the bulk is produced, to the south, where the lion’s share is consumed.
There is also an increase to cover the expansion of the Warm Homes Discount, a £150 payment extended to 2.7 million people by the government during the tortuous process of withdrawing and then partially re-instating the winter fuel payment to pensioners.
And while the unit price of gas has actually fallen, the daily standing charge, which covers the cost of maintaining the gas network, has risen by 4p, somewhat counterintuitively because we are using less.
While warmer weather and greater efficiency of homes means consumption has fallen, the cost of maintaining the network remains, and has to be shared across fewer units of gas. Expect that trend to be magnified as gas use declines but remains essential to maintaining electricity supply at short notice on a grid dominated by renewables.