Take control
of your
debt book
BFY helped us to rapidly reduce the size of customer debt and enabled us to keep it permanently lower
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For more information on selling customer debt in Energy and Utilities, contact one of our experts below.
For more information, please contact:
For more information, please contact:
Debt Sale
Extract hidden value from uncollected debt
After exhausting your collections process, you are likely to still have uncollected debts that are simply written off. Selling these debts to a reputable purchaser, while focussing on treating customers fairly, can achieve significant bottom-line improvements for Utility suppliers.
With over 10 years of debt sale experience, our experts deliver practical support at every stage of the process, facilitating multi-million-pound transactions for major retailers and challenger brands, in both the B2C and B2B markets.
Rather than sinking additional time and money into collecting aged debt, that has already exhausted your process, engaging in a sale gives you capacity to focus on more profitable customer accounts.
BFY’s Debt Sale team can manage this process on your behalf, ensuring the best possible price is realised, while always protecting your reputation. We also embed our expertise into your internal operation, leaving your people with the capability to manage debt effectively in the long-term.
How it works – Debt Sale
Our debt sale process consists of four stages, applying in both the Energy and Water sector.
Why do Utility suppliers sell customer debt?
The Affordability Crisis is having a profound impact in Utilities. More customers are struggling to pay their bills than ever before, creating the challenge of supporting vulnerable segments while recovering significant amounts of uncollected cash.
Engaging in a sale will allow you to recover a proportion of the value you’ve written off, providing a partial solution to an expensive problem.
We have supported Energy and Water suppliers throughout, and long before this crisis, providing hands-on delivery expertise to ensure a smooth debt sale process.
Who do we work with?
BFY Group is the trusted change partner in Utilities. We develop long-term relationships through the exceptional results that we deliver, with market-leading expertise in Energy and Water.
Our clients range from the largest utility brands to small and medium-sized challengers, covering both the domestic (B2C) and business (B2B) markets.
Our clients typically have a portfolio of around £50m of debt they want to sell, but it could be as low as £10m and in some cases as high as £500m.
Utility companies engage BFY when faced with:
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Large amounts of uncollected debt
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The prospect of substantial write-offs
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A lack of internal capability or capacity to manage debt effectively
Why do our clients choose us?
Our clients trust us to tackle their biggest problems, applying strategic insight and hands-on delivery expertise.
We are a unique blend of professionals with exceptional knowledge and trusted characteristics. Our teams are proactive, holding the experience required to deliver lasting results and improve bottom-line performance.
With extensive experience of managing customer debt, we can support you in extracting hidden value through a successful debt sale.
Case studies
We start by conducting an in-depth analysis of your customer portfolio, agreeing with you if this is a one-off sale or an ongoing relationship. We then assess the levels of aged or bad debt in each account, and segment them accordingly. This analysis allows us to establish which accounts are likely to deliver the most value in a sale.
Next, we complete due diligence on your customer data, which is crucial to ensure the debt sale runs smoothly, limiting the number of post-sale enquiries and allowing the purchaser to maximise collections. We also agree an exclusions criterion with you, applying this to produce a clean data set which is fit for sale.
After preparing you for the debt sale at account-level, our team engages with the market to find potential purchasers for your customer debt. We take time to carefully consider the values of your company, looking for a purchasing party who can align to these. Our experience holds significant value at this stage, as choosing an unsuitable purchaser could have a detrimental impact on your reputation.
Once a decision has been made on the purchaser of your customer debt, our Debt Sale team leads you through the delivery stage, including the management of information sharing, and the negotiation of any commercial offers. Our deep experience of this process means we’re prepared for the challenges that can arise as the sale proceeds.
The final stage of a debt sale involves preparing your internal teams for effective debt management in the long-term. This is supported by a series of internal workshops throughout the debt sale process, which aim to upskill your people and develop their capability to manage debt sales in the future.
These workshops are based on our Proven Ways of Working Framework, helping you to define a future target state for your debt operation, and reach it through the implementation of our guidance.
If you are looking to sell customer debt for the first time, it’s important to get your stakeholders aligned on the following:
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Tax and financial reporting – Ensure they are comfortable with the relevant B2C and B2B tax treatments, and reporting requirements
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Regulatory compliance - Ensure the contract has the appropriate regulatory protections
Whether you are new to debt sales or have experienced them before, BFY Group can support you throughout the process, from complete delivery of the sale to ad-hoc guidance on preparation.