Zest 4 was the fifth small supplier to go into administration in the last three months the other four being (Utility Link, Eledor, Team, Reepham, and Utilita). Zest 4 had a strategy which was to undercut suppliers prices and wait for market prices to fall buying their short on a rolling forward basis. The problem with this was that as market prices rose, they were locked in at low prices and were having to lock in losses when they came to buy their short. They have blamed this on not having up stream assets. Put another way they can also state that they are not fully measuring and evaluating their risk. The big six vertically integrated players may well be in a position to manage their length by generating but they do this at a market related price. Accepted that they are less likely to go bust (as they are having to buy up fuel costs as opposed to raw power, but they are also bigger.)

Zest 4 has managed to be a casualty of a volatile market because they did not have risk systems to help them measure and evaluate their risk.