The British energy group SSE has decided to divest its energy supply and energy-related services subsidiary SSE Energy Services by mid-2020, due to the decline in customer numbers, disappointing results and the failure of the proposed merger with npower. SSE Energy Services' profit collapsed (-84%) in 2018-2019 (April 2018-March 2019) to £35.3m (€40m), as the company lost 570,000 customer accounts (360,000 electricity customers and 210,000 gas customers) and their average energy consumption contracted.
In November 2017, SSE entered into an agreement with innogy to merge SSE Energy Services with innogy's subsidiary npower and to create a new independent group for supplying energy to 11 million British households. The transaction was provisionally cleared by the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in September 2018, but the energy regulator Ofgem proposed a cap on energy bills and SSE was not able to agree on revised merger terms. Consequently SSE scrapped its merger plans with npower in December 2018, considering that the proposed transaction was not in the best interests of its shareholders or customers.
Since December 2018, SSE has been reviewing a range of options for the future of SSE Energy Services, including a possible sale, alternative transaction or standalone listing by the second half of 2020.