LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Centrica's British Gas division has bought the customers of Robin Hood Energy, a loss-making supplier set up by Nottingham City Council to compete with the UK's big energy providers.
British Gas will take on 112,000 residential customers and 2,600 business customers from Robin Hood for an undisclosed sum. The deal is due to complete on 16 September and customers will move over the next few months.

Centrica said Robin Hood customers would be offered British Gas tariffs at the same price or cheaper than their current deal. Robin Hood's failure will transfer the customers of a company set up to take on the big energy companies to the UK's largest provider.

The sale will lead to 230 job cuts at Robin Hood, whose customers include former Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Nottingham set up Robin Hood in 2015 to provide customers with cheaper energy but it made losses every year. A recent report criticised the council for investing £43m of public money in Robin Hood.

Chris O'Shea, Centrica's chief executive, said: "As well as our actions to simplify and modernise our business, we are focused on returning to profitable growth in our core markets and investing in value generating opportunities."

The GMB union criticised Nottingham for "inexcusable" treatment of loyal workers by a badly run company. The union said many employees had less than two years' services with no legal right to redundancy pay. It called for all workers to be given a minimum of three months' redundancy pay.åç

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