At his golf club and in the boardroom – indeed anywhere that his £55,000 Jaguar takes him – Andrew Dyball enjoys an enviable reputation for success.
But the smooth-talking energy consultant was uncharacteristically taciturn last week, and certainly in no mood to discuss the crisis crippling his industry.
That is perhaps unsurprising given The Mail on Sunday can today reveal that he is linked to several of the failed energy firms whose collapse has hit more than a million households.
Mr Dyball makes his money by setting up so-called ‘off-the shelf’ companies, mostly shell firms, and selling them for as little as £70,000 to aspiring energy suppliers.
His clients, some with little or no experience of the industry, in turn sell utilities to households or businesses.
Andrew Dyball (pictured) is linked to several of the failed energy firms whose collapse has hit more than a million households, the Mail on Sunday can reveal
Two firms that have recently gone bust – Green and Utility Point – began in this way before being sold by Mr Dyball. His company boasts of helping establish more than 35 suppliers.
Some of them have failed and others appear to be facing difficulties after missing payments to energy regulator Ofgem.
While Mr Dyball himself was reluctant to speak, his company Dyball Associates last night issued a statement on its website which defended its business model and said ‘only seven’ of the 29 energy firms that have collapsed since 2018 had been ‘supported by’ the firm.
Fifteen of the 70 firms with a licence to supply power list Mr Dyball as a current or former director and his involvement has been lucrative.
His firm recently turned a £3.6 million profit and, in addition to the top-of-the-range car, he owns a spacious home in a desirable Worcester suburb.
Now, however, the industry is in crisis. Six energy firms serving a total of 1.5 million customers have gone bust in recent weeks. Many more could follow, with experts predicting that the total number of suppliers could fall to as few as ten.
When an energy supplier collapses, its customers are transferred to another firm by Ofgem under its ‘supplier of last resort’ scheme.
Each customer costs the rescuing firm between £600 and £700 to take on, with those costs usually passed on via household bills. Bigger firms such as British Gas and EDF have been put under pressure by the Government and Ofgem to take on customers from failed firms.
A series of companies established through Dyball Associates are among those which have recently failed.
They include Economy Energy, which owed £15.5 million for unpaid green levies and smart meters. Many of these failed firms re-emerge under a different name, in some cases again facilitated by the 63-year-old entrepreneur.
Mr Dyball was fined by Ofgem two years ago after an investigation found he had facilitated collusion between two supposedly rival firms.
Dyball Associates, E (Gas and Electricity) and Economy Energy were fined a total of £870,000, including £20,000 for Mr Dyball. Egel is still operating but Economy, which had 235,000 customers, went under shortly after being fined.
An Ofgem report into the way the three companies abused the market in 2016 said it involved ‘sharing commercially sensitive and strategic information, in the form of details of their customers.’
It added: ‘This agreement had as its object the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition. Dyball was aware of the actual conduct planned and/or put into effect by Economy and E... Therefore, Dyball participated as a facilitator.’
