British Gas parent company Centrica posted half-year profits of £992 million, a day after announcing they..?

Question

have upped gas bills by a mammoth 35%, with electricity prices up 9%.

The group said the price increases were necessary to restore "reasonable profitability"

For a company who are making profits of nearly £1bn for the first half of this year is it "reasonable" of them to increase our bills by 35% ?

Answer 1

I totally agree with you in principle, however we live in a capitalist society and therefore the company has to put their shareholders first.

The profits may well be £992M but this is down on the previous 6 months profit, therefore to satisfy the shareholders the company must try to at least maintain this level of profit.

I'm not agreeing with it, just pointing out the principle.

Answer 2

I cannot understand people backing up Centrica in their extortionate demand for a 35% increase in  the price of gas PER THERM. Even assuming  sustaining the present drop in profits, Centrica will make a total yearly profit of  ÃƒÂ‚£1:984 billion, not including the 35% increase to come. We must all make a profit to survive and up-date, but not to this extortionate extent. We must not lose sight of the fact the this company has been declared the worst performing, and the least customer friendly company supplying gas /electricity, now another dimension can be added to their bow, the most expensive one. They have also increased gas and electric prices at least 3 times in the past 2 years, and reduced them once, by a fraction of what they increased them by in the first place, and they have the cheek to boast to us on TV that they have reduced prices  I am just thankful that British Gas is not in charge of "National Food Supplies".

Answer 3

It's absolutely disgusting.. surely in these times, shareholders can understand a dip in profits, so using that as an excuse is rubbish. Adding to the economic misery for millions and pushing the economy even further into recession cannot be justified by saying the shareholders need to be placated. There are bigger things at stake. It makes you wonder if there are hidden powers and agendas at work.

Answer 4

Don't be tricked by the way media reports information.

Centrica in the previous 6 months made 1.24 billion, this 6 months they made 992 million, that's a LOSS for them in real terms and it's because the british gas portion is not performing as well because as their fuel costs go up they don't get in any more revenue, if they want to stay profitable then they need to increase prices every now and then.

Every big company makes billions of pounds of profit, thats how the world works, these companies also need to invest in new technolgies for getting energy so they need to make profits.

You may as well also go and picket the local BP garage for the profits they make, in the same period they made £6.7 billion.

british gas on its own only made 550 million in the last year (the figures above are both for 6 months) so it's not performing that well.

Answer 5

Yes and this is just the sort of thing that makes us have a reccession. Plain greed.

Answer 6

Don't even get me started on gas companies - absolute rip off merchants.