When Ian Marchant stood down as chief executive at SSE in 2013, he raged against the vitriol that energy suppliers faced, saying that investors had asked him: “Why on earth have you still got a retail business? It’s 20 per cent of your profits and 90 per cent of your criticism, angst, management time.”In the past four and a half years, the retail business’s contribution to SSE profits has fallen, while the criticism and angst has only increased. From Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze prices to the Competition and Markets Authority inquiry into the sector, and now the Conservative plans to cap prices, energy suppliers have barely been out of the spotlight. Yesterday’s announcement that SSE planned to demerge its retail business into a…

Source: The Times November 08, 2017 00:03 UTC