Al spending his Al Jazerra oil money.
Via The Telegraph
Al Gore, the former US vice president and climate change campaigner, has invested £8m in Ovo Energy, one of the UK’s fastest growing new power suppliers.
The US politician-turned-investor began talks with the firm late last year through his sustainable investment fund, Generation Investment Management, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. The mezzanine finance deal was completed in January.
Mr Gore’s fund has not taken a direct stake but will share in the growth of the challenger brand, launched by Stephen Fitzpatrick in 2009 to take on the Big Six energy companies.
It is the largest investment deal in Ovo Energy’s history.
Mr Fitzpatrick said: “The most important thing for us was that we didn’t have to give up any control. We had previously turned down a deal with a private equity investor as we were being asked to give up too much control relative to the stake we were selling.” […]
Mr Fitzpatrick said he had delayed Ovo’s stock market debut to focus on growth.
He recently came under fire for taking £2m out of the business to buy a family home, despite the company posting profits of just £300,000 last year.
“This withdrawal was painted in a specific light and the story was originated by one of our competitors,” he said. “Our revenues are £490m a year. We only planned to break even last year because we wanted to invest everything back into the business and will continue to do so for the next year.”
“We’ll be loss-making in 2014,” he added. “We’re going to spend a lot of money acquiring more new customers. The faster we grow, the greater the net losses.”