What was claimed
Profit margins of the big six energy companies hit their highest ever level.
Our verdict
That’s correct if you look at the average. It was 4.5% in 2016, up from 1% in 2009 when these figures were first published. Looking at individual companies there is a lot of variation though.
“Last week the profit margins of big six energy companies hit their highest ever level.”
Jeremy Corbyn, 6 September 2017
That’s correct if you look at the average.
The average profit margin of the big six energy companies was 4.5% in 2016. That’s the highest since the measure began in 2009.
That’s looking at the profits before tax as a proportion of overall revenue from supplying domestic gas and electricity.
That average hides a lot of variation between companies though. NPower’s supply margin was -6.3%, whilst at the other end of the spectrum Centrica’s was 7.2%.
Looking at the companies individually only two had their highest ever profit margin in 2016 (E.ON and SSE).
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