Ocado set to invest £600m on robotic warehouses this year as it prepares to launch international partnerships
Ocado will double the amount it is spending on robotic warehouses to £600million this year as it prepares to launch partnerships overseas.
It plans to open its first delivery facilities for Sobeys in Toronto and Casino in Paris.
It has signed deals with major supermarkets in the US, Australia, Japan and Sweden, and boasts its partners have a £210billion combined annual revenue.
Cutting edge: Ocado says it will double the amount it is spending on robotic warehouses to £600m this year
Thirty warehouses are expected to be built abroad in the next few years.
The growth of Ocado landed co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner £58.7million in pay last year.
This included a £54million bonus paid on the back of an average share price rise of 31 per cent a year between 2014 and 2019. Yesgterday, shares rose 3.1 per cent, or 37.5p, to 1254.5p.
But it also revealed that losses ballooned from £44million to £214million last year, which it blamed in part on a fire at warehouses in Andover, Hampshire, last February.
Revenues rose 9.9 per cent to £1.7billion in the year to December 31, driven largely by its retail division, which was up 10.3 per cent to £1.6billion.
The company booked a £112million charge in rebuilding costs and lost capacity, much of which will be recouped from insurers.
Ocado has gone into business with Marks & Spencer and will begin delivering its products from September.
The online supermarket is continuing to open smaller sites in the UK, and Steiner defended Ocado’s warehouse next to a school in north London, where the company has faced a local revolt over pollution and safety fears.
Broker Peel Hunt said it was ‘excited’ about Ocado’s prospects, while Joe Healey, analyst at The Share Centre, said the results ‘show a bright spark in the maligned grocery sector’.
- A former Goldman Sachs banker and chief finance officer for one of the UK’s biggest sandwich-makers has joined Marks & Spencer as its new finance chief. Eoin Tonge joins from Greencore, replacing Humphrey Singer. Tonge will receive a basic salary of £600,000.