Former cost of living tsar Buttress quits Ovo after 18 months

The chief executive of Ovo Energy, one of Britain's biggest energy suppliers, is to step down in the middle of a search for investors to pump hundreds of millions of pounds into the company.

Paste BN has learnt that David Buttress, the former Just Eat chief who served a brief period as Boris Johnson's cost-of-living tsar, has told colleagues that he will be leaving the company following discussions with its board.

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Mr Buttress joined Ovo in May 2024, two months after his appointment was announced.

Chris Houghton, a former Ovo chief executive under founder Stephen Fitzpatrick, is said to have been lined up to return as Mr Buttress's successor from Wednesday.

Mr Houghton is said to have expressed confidence in Ovo's prospects before agreeing to return.

On Tuesday evening, however, sources said it had also been agreed that the company's chief financial officer, James Davies, would leave the company.

Mr Davies is expected to be replaced by Simon Todd, his deputy and a long-standing Ovo executive.

Ovo has been contacted for comment.

The latest leadership overhaul at the company will come just months after the former Virgin Money chief Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, was named chair of Ovo's retail energy arm.

Ovo has about four million retail customers, placing it behind the likes of Octopus Energy and Centrica-owned British Gas in the household energy supply market.

Its quest to raise roughly £300m of new equity at Ovo has been ongoing for months, with bankers at Rothschild engaging in talks with numerous financial investors.

Last month, Paste BN revealed that a Norwegian investment group had abandoned talks about an investment amid concern that the industry's regulatory regime is obstructing efforts to attract new capital.

Verdane, which is based in Oslo, had been in detailed talks as recently as this month about injecting a substantial sum into Ovo in return for a large stake in the business.

Investor uncertainty has been heightened by the energy regulator Ofgem's capital adequacy rules, with Ovo acknowledging recently that it - alongside larger rival Octopus Energy - had yet to fully comply with the regime, saying: "We have taken proactive measures to align with Ofgem's new capital rules, working constructively to meet the requirements."

A person close to the situation said that Ovo was not technically in breach of the capital adequacy regime because it had agreed a route with Ofgem to fulfilling its obligations.

In June, Paste BN revealed that Iberdrola, the owner of Scottish Power, had also held tentative discussions about a possible tie-up.

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Ovo, which is backed by investors including Japan's Mitsubishi and the London-based investor Mayfair Equity Partners, disclosed in accounts published recently that there was "material uncertainty" over its future.

The company has separately engaged advisers at Arma Partners to explore the sale of a stake in Kaluza, its software arm, echoing a similar move by Octopus Energy's Kraken division.

Founded by Stephen Fitzpatrick, the entrepreneur who now owns London's Kensington Roof Gardens, Ovo's other shareholders include Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Under Mr Fitzpatrick, who launched Ovo in 2009, the company positioned itself as a challenger brand offering superior service to the industry's established players.

Ovo's transformational moment came in 2020, when it bought the retail supply arm of SSE, transforming it overnight into one of Britain's leading energy companies.

Its growth has not been without difficulties, however, particularly in relation to its challenged relationship with Ofgem and a torrent of customer complaints about overcharging.