Holaluz, the disaster of the great green hope | Companies

In October 2013, a small Catalan marketer broke into the electricity market by winning the first collective procurement auction organized by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU). Then called Holaluz.com, as it operated online only, such was its success that by the end of that year it had won 15,000 new contracts (an average of 50 per day), up from just over 2,000 at the start, and was forced to increase staff employees from 18 to 30 people. The company’s exponential growth in just ten years shows that in 2022 it already had a workforce of 600 people and a portfolio of 370,000 customers.

Founded in 2010 by an industrial engineer. Charlotte Pea (who previously worked at Nexus), along with Ferran Noguet And Oriol VilaThese entrepreneurs began with the belief that the liberalization of the electricity market in the late 1990s did not benefit consumers enslaved by the dominance of large electricity companies. Recognizing the limited profits that marketing provided, Holaluz resorted to tricks such as reducing capacity or not servicing accounts, and the fact that by contracting online only, its costs were lower than those of large companies in the sector. And all this with a more individual approach.

From the very beginning, Holaluz, which sold and sells only renewable electricity, wanted to create an image of moral and energy activism that contradicted the bad reputation of large companies in the sector. This initially helped it attract clients, who were attracted by the Catalan company’s genuine commitment to combating climate change and the energy transition. Great phrases (like the one uttered by its president Carlota Pi in an interview with the publication Five days“We created Holaluz to save the planet”) became commonplace, and the company was held up as an example of a dedicated electric utility company and received numerous awards.

But Holaluz soon became just another electricity company to receive fines from the CNMC for allegedly defrauding consumers or for being one of the most expensive in the regulator’s tariff comparator. And, as has been demonstrated, “margins in this business, where they have been competing for years with very low regulated rates and now with negative prices in poolit is very small or non-existent,” comment sources in the sector.

The problem is Holaluz, which is currently on the verge of pre-bankruptcy proceedings and trading has been suspended for BME growth, is not limited to its initial marketing activities, although this is reflected in the collapse in prices after the energy crisis. In recent years, Holaluz has embarked on new activities, such as gas supply in 2015 (which it abandoned in 2022 when 70,000 customers left when the government decided to subsidize TUR); market representation; small home batteries, for which the company partnered with Tesla; and, especially, the installation of self-consumption panels, with their call Revolution on the roof, for which I acquired several installer companies with appropriate templates. Holaluz was the first marketer to propose a fixed rate in the electricity market in 2018, which it called Fair rate “for responsible consumers.”

At the height of the energy crisis, with exorbitant prices (which, although lasting, were temporary), self-consumption increased by 100% (2400 MW installed in 2022 alone), helped by government subsidies that had already disappeared. In 2023, according to UNEF, own consumption collapsed by 35%, and the segment in which Holaluz specializes, the residential sector, by 55%. Given the more expensive and difficult to manage network, the company has about 10,000 panels installed. Added to this are rising interest rates and lower demand due to inflation. The installer crisis (in 2022 the company bought three companies in the sector: Katae Energía, Serna Energía and GHC Instalaciones) forced Holaluz to introduce the ERE in November, which affected 200 workers, 27% of its large workforce.

Poor management?

Among the reasons some analysts point to for the failure of Holaluz, which has been suspected for a couple of years, are “poor management” and a “pursuit of growth” that does not fit with its image of protecting the planet. . To this end, a race for funding began in the middle of the last decade, culminating in the entry in 2016 of the Axon Partners fund (currently with 14.6% of the capital), and in 2019 of Geroa, a fund based in San Sebastian that manages savings more than 100,000 employees and owns 6.68% shares. That same year, the company began trading on BMW Growth, a market for smaller companies. Since then, the founding partners have owned 44.7% of the shares, and free swimming is 22%.

The 2023 accounts, published early on Wednesday, with an apparent divestment from the two funds, speak for themselves: Holaluz’s losses for the year increased fivefold to €26.2 million; Consolidated sales fell 33% to 614.6 million; Normalized EBITDA was 4.3 million, down from 14.3 million a year earlier, and commercial margin fell a further 25% to 62.8 million. Marketer debt was 65.4 million, down from 62.3 million a year earlier, which relates to the investments required to finance a solar business. Holaluz is relying on new sources of funding to avoid bankruptcy proceedings: a potential capital increase (which is unlikely to find demand) and a loan it is negotiating with the Generalitat of Catalonia for 10 million euros. Whatever happens, customers will be protected as their supply cannot be stopped and in the worst case scenario it will be transferred to a regulated trader.

Two dissident council members out of seven on the council say they have a lack of information and disagree with the policy of capitalizing the costs of new projects.

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