Centrica left it far too late to face up to its problems | Nils Pratley

So this is what Chris O’Shea, new chief executive of Centrica, owner of British Gas, meant by his plan to “modernise and simplify the way we do business”: 20,000 employees in the UK must accept new terms and conditions or else they could lose their jobs.

Centrica hasn’t yet started the “fire and rehire” process and says it will only do so as “a last resort” if negotiations with unions fail. But a formal advance warning of mass redundancies has been made.

Union representatives are outraged, and one can understand why. A decade ago British Gas was regarded as the UK’s national champion in energy – a slow-moving organisation maybe, but not one likely to resort to roughhouse tactics with staff during a pandemic.

From O’Shea’s point of view, one can see why he feels he must do something. British Gas has lost 1 million customers in the past two years; the energy price cap has collapsed earnings; smaller rivals are nimbler and sharper. Basic pay and pensions will be protected, says Centrica, but changes to working hours, for example on weekend shifts and holiday entitlements, are needed to keep up with the competition.

It is hard, though, to see the stand-off with employees as anything other than a shocking failure of management over many years. Iain Conn, the last chief executive, inherited a company in 2015 with decent profit margins, a fat dividend and market leadership. There was too much debt, and the dividend proved an unaffordable luxury, but somewhere in that mix there should have been room to “modernise and simplify” before a challenge became today’s crisis.

In the event, Conn left in March, having taken the shares down from 270p to 40p, and out of the FTSE 100 index, on his watch. He cut a few thousand jobs in his time (and 5,000 more are due to go), but clearly failed to get the business into shape when conditions were gentler. The rot at Centrica was at the top.

Bookies’ firm chief quits in another about-turn

Ayrshire must be a pleasant place to spend a lockdown. It has clearly mellowed Kenny Alexander, deal-making chief executive of GVC, the betting firm that owns Ladbrokes and Coral. He said recently he had no plans to quit after 13 years in charge; now he is retiring at the age of 51.

About-turns, though, have been Alexander’s style. Last year he sold three-quarters of his shareholding, raising £13.7m, just after he’d been banging on about how the stock market was undervaluing GVC. He was roughly right about valuation, it should be said: the price then was 666p and, via an exciting ride, it is now 880p.

The size of that shareholding is also a clue to how profitable GVC’s acquisition-driven growth, from industry tiddler in 2007 to member of the FTSE 100 index, has been for the architect. Part of his stack of shares arrived via a supercharged share incentive scheme that meant he was paid a ridiculous £55m between 2016 and 2018.

There’s no doubt Alexander played a strategic blinder, outwitting the industry’s old guard. He backed the online boom early. GVC jumped on Ladbrokes Coral at the right moment, just when the regulatory squeeze on fixed-odds betting terminals was most intense. And he’s been cuter than most on industry politics, positioning GVC at the “progressive” end on regulation and voluntary codes (even if that’s not saying much).

You won’t, however, find this piece of Alexander wisdom, delivered to a parliamentary inquiry, in GVC’s adverts: “Ninety-nine per cent of the customers who play on our sites will lose. If you play more, you’re probably losing more.” Always worth remembering.

Don’t read too much into Boohoo’s founders increasing their stakes

There’s never a bad moment for co-founders of a crisis-ridden company to demonstrate faith by buying a few shares, but don’t get too excited by the combined £15m splash of cash at Boohoo by Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane.

The increase in their holdings is not substantial in percentage terms. In Kamani’s case, he has added 5m shares to the 152m he already owned. Kane had 31m and now has 33m. Indeed, given how far the share price has fallen in the past fortnight, it would have been odd if the duo had not topped up.