Executives at Gazprom’s British trading arm have approached the Russian state-backed energy company about a management buyout as it teeters on the brink of insolvency.
Sky News has learnt that senior managers at Gazprom Marketing & Trading Retail, which supplies commercial customers including hospitals and local authorities across the UK, are hatching plans to acquire the division.
The business has been left just days from requiring a government bailout through the special administration regime (SAR) deployed last year during the rescue of Bulb, the household energy supplier.
Image: Gazprom’s UK arm supplies corporate customers and public bodies including the NHSThe Sunday Times reported at the weekend that large customers including McDonald’s and Siemens were seeking alternative suppliers, while Sky News revealed earlier this month that the British steel group owned by Sanjeev Gupta was reviewing its trading ties to the Russian group.
Gazprom Energy, the division’s UK trading name, supplies more than 20% of the gas used by British companies.
AdvertisementThe parent company’s chief executive, Alexei Miller, is reported to be a close ally of Vladimir Putin and has been sanctioned since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
European football’s governing body, UEFA, has cancelled Gazprom’s Champions League sponsorship deal, while the health secretary, Sajid Javid, has told NHS England to stop using energy supplied by the company.
More from BusinessIt was unclear on Tuesday how a management buyout proposal would interact with the almost-certain need for government intervention.
If Gazprom Energy is effectively taken into state control for a period, it would add to the cost to British taxpayers of subsidising an energy industry which has been ravaged by soaring wholesale prices.
Gazprom Energy could not be reached for comment.