British Gas owner Centrica swings to £2.2bn annual profit

British Gas owner Centrica (Frankfurt: A0DK6K - news) has reported a pre-tax profit of £2.2bn for 2016, up from a loss of £1.1bn the year before.

The sharp improvement was mainly accounted for by the fact that the FTSE 100 group was weighed down by £2.4bn in accounting charges in 2015.

Profits at its British Gas UK residential supply arm were down 11% to £553m, partly due to a customer exodus which saw it lose more than 400,000 customers over the course of the year.

But Centrica said it stemmed the outflow in the second half of the year after launching new tariffs, while complaint levels fell.

Chief (Taiwan OTC: 3345.TWO - news) executive Iain Conn said: "2016 was a year of robust performance and progress in implementing our customer-focused strategy."

Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) fell 3%.

The results come weeks after British Gas, Britain's biggest energy supplier, said it was extending a freeze on tariffs, even as rivals said they would put up their prices.

UK energy suppliers have been under political pressure over the past couple of years over their treatment of household customers, and regulators have imposed a price cap for vulnerable pre-payment meter customers.

Centrica said the cap would impact its revenue this year by £50m.

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