Abstract During the three-year period 2007–2009, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity and Gas has issued numerous measures concerning the retail market of natural gas. The same period was characterized by a deep economic and financial crisis involving the industrial sector and, in particular, the energy companies. This paper aims to analyse the combined effect of the new regulatory measures and of the economic crisis on the business performance of natural gas retail companies. To that aim, the balance sheets were analysed for a sample of 111 companies and the profitability, financial and liquidity indicators were calculated. A cluster analysis was then performed utilising the most important performance indexes. The firms within each cluster were analysed with respect to the main company characteristics.