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‘Something unfathomably wrong’: Energy giant records £4.9 billion profit as households struggle

Energy giant E.On has reported an eight billion euro (£6.9 billion) increase in its UK sales over the last six months.

The German company said it plans to invest billions across Europe as it revealed a 1 per cent drop in sales there to around 52.4 billion euros (£44.8 billion) over the half year.

But sales in the UK rose at breakneck speed, hitting a little under 21 billion euros (£18.1 billion), up from 12.8 billion (£11 billion) a year earlier, the business said.

Adjusted EBITDA – a measure of profit which strips out the impacts of tax and other items – more than doubled in the UK to 839 million euros (£723 million).

Across the group adjusted EBITDA was 5.7 billion euros (£4.9 billion).

It comes as many UK households struggle to keep up with the soaring cost of energy and other bills.

The latest quarterly outlook of the UK economy by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) suggests low economic growth and stagnant productivity is increasing the financial vulnerability of households in the bottom half of the income distribution and the incidence of destitution at the poorest end.

Projections for the General Election year of 2024 suggest that inequalities of income and assets will grow, with little real income growth for many, low or no savings, higher debt, as well as elevated housing, energy and food costs.

As a consequence, the shortfall in the real disposable incomes of households in the bottom half of the income distribution is set to reach some 17 per cent in the period 2019-2024.

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Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

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