The Morning Brief · 30 October 2026
Velkommen group
On 7 August 2026 the Maritime and Commercial High Court in Copenhagen declared Velkommen A/S bankrupt. Five weeks earlier, more than 32,000 of its group’s homes had woken up with a supplier they never chose. So who now holds the money the customers are owed?
Cheap electricity, sold to homes.
The Velkommen group sold electricity to Danish homes through companies called Velkommen, Nettopower, Power Fuel and Vedvarende, with a gas arm called b.energy. Like many small suppliers, it bought power and sold it on, competing on price. The name means welcome, and joining was easy.
A fair bill, and your money back when you leave.
Every electricity supplier makes the same basic promise. When you leave, you get a final bill. Any money you paid in advance and did not use comes back quickly.
- Refund customers who leave, on timeDanish electricity rulesBroken
- Repay former customers at once, as the regulator orderedForsyningstilsynet orders, 14 Apr and 6 May 2026Not followed
- Keep supplying its customersSupply agreementsEnded 30 Jun
- Customers owed money get some of it backThe bankruptcy estates, 2026–Open
One minute read. Four to go.
The Power Test · Question 8 of 35
Does your company pay its bills with money it is holding for customers?
This question is about your company, not Velkommen group.
Your answer stays on this screen. The advice opens free when you join the Morning Brief.
- In your company
- The sign: your company takes longer and longer to pay back money it owes customers. The check: ask finance where that money sits today, and in whose account. The move: pull the list of refunds due and pay the oldest one today.
- In your investments
- The sign: a company that holds customer money and pays it back late. The check: read the complaints, the regulator’s decisions and the refund times. The move: ask whether that money is what keeps it open, before you trust its accounts.
- In your career
- The sign: customer money you handle is used to cover a gap. The check: notice the first time it happens, and write down the date. The move: say so that first time; if you stayed quiet before, say it now, because silence stays on your name.
— Max Noble
Take the short test, 2 minutes →The full chapter is in the book →
What the room knows about Velkommen group
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- How often refunds were late, in a chart
- What the customer book was sold for, and how it is paid
- The three moves I would make holding anyone’s money
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Late, almost every time.
After many complaints, the energy regulator, Forsyningstilsynet, checked how the companies treated customers who left.
Velkommen paid money back late in more than nine of every ten cases it checked.
Nettopower, which Velkommen owns outright, was late in almost every case.
At Power Fuel the regulator checked 303 cases and found every one of them late. Late was not the exception. It was the house style.
On 14 April 2026 the regulator ordered Velkommen to pay back what it owed. Six days later the companies were banned from signing up new customers for three months.
On 30 June the grid companies Cerius and Radius ended their agreements with four of the suppliers.
The suppliers had collected grid charges from their customers. For several months, the grid companies said, that money had not been passed on. They put what they were owed at a sizable sum in the millions.
Energinet, which runs the national electricity data hub, moved about 32,500 customers to other suppliers that week. It told them that any money still owed was a matter between them and their old supplier.
Refunds paid late, as a share of cases checked
The hand passed from the owners to the court.
In early July three of the companies asked for time to restructure under court protection. A lawyer was put in charge of finding a way out.
His way out was to sell the customer book.
More than 30,000 supply agreements went to another supplier, Energidrift, for about 17 million kroner, according to a complaint later filed by customers.
Only four million of that was paid in cash. The rest comes in instalments, the last one due in April 2028. Most of the price was a promise to pay later, which is an awkward thing to sell to the creditors of companies that paid late.
Energidrift took the right to bill those customers. It did not take the money the old companies owed them.
The handover was not tidy. Energinet says about 1,500 customers were moved by mistake, from an out-of-date list.
A customer who pays in advance has lent you money. They just did not sign a loan agreement.
The protection did not hold. Nettopower was declared bankrupt on 28 July. Velkommen, Vedvarende and b.energy followed on 7 August. By late August the Energy Appeals Board listed Power Fuel among five bankrupt energy companies.
Each estate is now run by a curator, the lawyer a court appoints to collect what is left and share it out. The curators are at the law firms Poul Schmith and Kromann Reumert, among others.
Customers who are owed money can file a claim with the curator. The Energy Appeals Board says plainly that ordinary creditors usually get little or nothing back.
Filing is still worth doing. A claim that is not filed cannot be paid, and the curator checks each one at a formal meeting announced in Statstidende, the official gazette.
A group of customers has complained to the lawyers’ disciplinary board about how the sale was run. There is no ruling yet. The grid companies and the regulator have reported the companies to the police. No court has decided anything about that.
How the customer book is paid for, million kroner
From order to bankruptcy
Late refunds were the signal, months before the court.
My verdict: the business is finished, and the customers’ money now sits in the estates. The signal was public from April, when the regulator printed the numbers. A company that pays its leavers late may be leaning on money that is not its own. On the 30 October board it sits among the risers only because the hand has changed. The court’s lawyers, not the owners, now decide who gets what, and that is the first steady hand this story has had.
Three moves I would make in the chair.
Keep customer money in its own account.
If I ran a supplier, prepayments would sit apart from the running budget. Money that belongs to customers would never pay this month’s bills.
Pay the leavers first.
I would treat the first late refund as a cash alarm. I would fix the cash, not the refund process, and tell the board the same week.
Sell in daylight.
If I had to sell a customer book, I would get an independent value, ask more than one buyer and tell every creditor who is paying. A fast sale that creditors cannot see is the one they fight.
Never Spend the Money You Owe Your Customers
Denmark, 30 June 2026. In one day, more than 32,000 homes get a new electricity supplier. They never chose it. Their old supplier was called Velkommen, which means welcome. Leaving was another matter. Customers who left waited for their own money, and most of them waited too long. It is a strange kind of welcome that is hardest on the way out. By the end of this chapter, you will see that wait for what it is, before the room does. Money you hold for your customers sits in your account, but it belongs to someone else. Never spend the money you owe your customers.
— Max Noble
The Velkommen companies did not fall because power is a bad business. They fell when customers stopped getting their money back.
From the book in preparationThe 52 Laws of Business Power · the 2027 edition, out 31 OctoberRead every law so far →
The Power Test · Question 8 of 35
Does your company pay its bills with money it is holding for customers?
This question is about your company, not Velkommen group.
- In your company
- The sign: your company takes longer and longer to pay back money it owes customers. The check: ask finance where that money sits today, and in whose account. The move: pull the list of refunds due and pay the oldest one today.
- In your investments
- The sign: a company that holds customer money and pays it back late. The check: read the complaints, the regulator’s decisions and the refund times. The move: ask whether that money is what keeps it open, before you trust its accounts.
- In your career
- The sign: customer money you handle is used to cover a gap. The check: notice the first time it happens, and write down the date. The move: say so that first time; if you stayed quiet before, say it now, because silence stays on your name.
— Max Noble
Take the short test, 2 minutes →The full chapter is in the book →
The Velkommen companies are now in the hands of court-appointed curators, and customers owed money are filing claims against the estates.
You have read the Velkommen group. Now make the board’s call.
Compete in The Power GameEvery number traceable.
- Energy Appeals Board (Ankenævnet på Energiområdet), 25 Aug 2026: five energy companies bankrupt, curators, how to claim, ordinary creditors usually get little · energianke.dk
- Statstidende, 7 Aug 2026: Velkommen A/S bankruptcy decree · statstidende.dk
- Statstidende, 7 Aug 2026: Vedvarende A/S bankruptcy decree · statstidende.dk
- Statstidende, 28 Jul 2026: Nettopower ApS bankruptcy decree · statstidende.dk
- Elberegner, 12 Aug 2026: bankruptcy dates, Maritime and Commercial High Court, curators at Poul Schmith · elberegner.dk
- Cerius-Radius press release, 3 Jul 2026: bankruptcy petition, unpaid grid charges, police report, 32,500 customers moved · via.ritzau.dk
- Energinet via Lovguiden, 30 Jun 2026: about 32,500 customers moved to new suppliers · lovguiden.dk
- Strømligning via Ritzau, 24 Jul 2026: 30,265 agreements sold for 16.7m kroner, 4m in cash, last instalment 5 Apr 2028 · via.ritzau.dk
- Strømligning via Ritzau, 6 Aug 2026: customers’ complaint to the lawyers’ disciplinary board; Energidrift took billing rights, not the debts · via.ritzau.dk
- Energinet via Ritzau, 10 Aug 2026: about 1,500 customers moved by mistake from an out-of-date list · via.ritzau.dk
- Energy Appeals Board via Lovguiden, 8 Jul 2026: three companies in reconstruction, how to claim · lovguiden.dk
- Forsyningstilsynet via Lovguiden, 14 Apr 2026: order to Velkommen to repay · lovguiden.dk
- Forsyningstilsynet decisions via Lovguiden: Power Fuel order of 6 May 2026, 303 of 303 cases late; Velkommen owns all of Nettopower · lovguiden.dk
- Energinet via Lovguiden, 20 Apr 2026: three-month ban on new customers · lovguiden.dk
- Sjællandske Medier, 30 Jun 2026: regulator findings on late refunds at Velkommen and Nettopower · sn.dk
- TV2 Kosmopol: grid companies ask for bankruptcy; regulator reports companies to the police · tv2kosmopol.dk
The verdict, the three moves and the law are Max Noble’s analysis. Police reports are not charges, and no court has ruled on them. Not investment advice.
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Never Spend the Money You Owe Your Customers
The same mistake, in your own world. Free, from the book.
- In your company
- The sign: your company takes longer and longer to pay back money it owes customers. The check: ask finance where that money sits today, and in whose account. The move: pull the list of refunds due and pay the oldest one today.
- In your investments
- The sign: a company that holds customer money and pays it back late. The check: read the complaints, the regulator’s decisions and the refund times. The move: ask whether that money is what keeps it open, before you trust its accounts.
- In your career
- The sign: customer money you handle is used to cover a gap. The check: notice the first time it happens, and write down the date. The move: say so that first time; if you stayed quiet before, say it now, because silence stays on your name.