Bankruptcy looms as 52,400 customer contracts transferred

All 52,400 customer contracts from four struggling energy companies are to be sold to a new supplier, leaving customers unlikely to recover most of the advance payments they had made.

Danish broadcaster DR reports that Velkommen A/S, Vedvarende A/S, Nettopower ApS and b.energy gas ApS, which entered reconstruction earlier this month, will have their remaining contracts transferred to Energidrift A/S under a deal valued at 16.7 million Danish kroner.

The transfer is scheduled for Saturday unless creditors object. Energidrift A/S will take on 30,265 electricity customers, 12,169 IT-security customers, 6,162 mobile telephony customers, 2,749 gas customers and 1,047 production customers.

Customer advance payments and a-conto balances are not included in the sale. Regulators previously found that Velkommen and Nettopower failed to reimburse customers in 91% of verified cases, leaving about 80 million kroner in outstanding customer credits as of early 2025.

“I do not expect much to be left for ordinary customers,” said Leif Christensen, associate professor at Copenhagen Business School. Per Nikolaj Bukh, professor of management accounting at Aalborg University, agreed: “If I were a customer, I would assume the money is lost or so small it is unusable.”

Both experts said the rapid transfer of contracts was the least damaging option, given the companies’ precarious financial state. The four firms are expected to file for bankruptcy shortly, leaving a residual estate whose value will determine how much, if anything, can be repaid to customers.

The Danish state is among major creditors with claims exceeding 50 million kroner.