Oh deary, this delivery service was spun out of Waitrose, DYOR and is now spewing out lots of green messages all over, for those shoppers that want home-delivery. Yet, oddly it seems in London next year Waitrose will launch its own delivery -( seems a bit "stupid" - eh?)
Meanwhile, the sp starts at 1.60 and slips a tad ( yet to make a Profit, but it's closer than those Dot-Com lunatic days..)....about 1.64 close today......yet, their Customers were offered a bung of shares at the Float-price....eh? (Well, it helps it get-away, I suppose.).

Chairman Michael Grade is said to be "very happy" with the discounted Float, but he gets shares to the value of a something-Bonus. However, some commentaters suggest he's not the right man for this business (or a.....).

Ocado - Grief, it's an Ugly name. They were so close to Car-Go, or Green-Del (er, perhaps?). It was also associated with John Lewis Group, but DYOR.

The BAD News is that today an RNS shows the level of Director support (did he "miss out" - or did his Broker missunderstand the word Goodbye...?
Director buys 3k's worth.....Ouch. That must upset anyone like me that thinks any Dir purchase of 50k+ is Goood. . . . . and anything under 10k is really Baaad.


Good Luck, this is an established business...


EDIT -(22Oct10)- 147p
EDIT (29Nov2017)- sp 362p= up 17% - maybe expecting a bid/contract

..Ocado shares fall on Olympic worries

......
Shares in Ocado, the online grocery business, fell heavily after it admitted that it had lost out during the Jubilee weekend and could be hit by disruption caused by the Olympics.

In sharp contrast to the major supermarket chains, which reported a boost in sales thanks to the Jubilee celebrations, Ocado said it has missed out because it could not send out extra vans to supply customers.

The company’s comments were made as it reported a modest half-year profit and a further loosening of ties with its main supplier Waitrose.

Tim Steiner, the chief executive, said extra holidays were difficult to respond to: “Grocery chains hire a bunch of temporary staff and allow an unpleasant atmosphere in store as it gets crowded.”

He said that sales during the final quarter of the year had been hit by 1pc to 2pc, roughly the equivalent to about £1.5m to £3m.

He said could not predict how the Olympics would affect business. “None of us know if it is going to increase demand, or whether it will increase the costs of delivery.”

These comments, along with a warning that the consumer economy remained tough encouraging customers to buy fewer items on each shop caused the shares to fall 20.1 to 88p.

Analysts said they were concerned at how competitive the market was becoming, with Asda (NYSE: WMT - news) , Sainsbury’s and Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news) all offering a greater amount of food on promotion.

Mr Steiner insisted that Ocado was not giving away a substantially more vouchers to attract new customers 2.6pc of its sales, up from 2.4pc the year before.

The company has pushed its own-brand line of food, and a growing range of non-food, further lessening its reliance on Waitrose. Eight in ten customers now put an Ocado-branded item in their basket. Fewer than 40pc of goods it sells now come from Waitrose. The deal Waitrose has to supply Ocado comes to an end in 2020.

it revealed pre-tax profits rose to £181,000 in the 24 weeks to May 13 from £174,000 in the same period last year on turnover up 12pc to £332m.

In December shares in Ocado fell to an all-time low after the troubled retailer warned that continued problems at its Hatfield distribution centre would mean yet another year of pre-tax losses.

The highest number of orders delivered in a week exceeded 138,000 during the period.

Joseph Robinson, senior consultant at research agency Conlumino, said: "Ocado seems to have long left behind the issues that have besieged its Hatfield site, and so impinged its 2011 numbers, with its update representing a pleasing performance.

"However, significant question marks remains over the long-term potential for the Ocado model to achieve profitability. Moreover, in the shorter-term, the retailer will encounter an intensifying competitive environment, as its rivals continue to pour investment into pricing and promotions to drive market share."

Meanwhile, Ocado has revealed that former B&Q chief financial officer Duncan Tatton-Brown will join the company in the same role

Easy short money here, going sub 60p, nay bother. Aye.

Ocado's shares are continuing their slide following its disappointing first half update in June, with joint broker Goldman Sachs adding to the misery by cutting its recommendation from buy to neutral.

Many in the industry believe a standalone online operation is at a disadvantage without a physical store to help defray costs.

Goldman has issued a negative note, reducing its six month price target from 140p to 110p. The bank's analyst Karen Hooi said:

We downgrade Ocado and revise our estimates and price target following the first half . Since upgrading Ocado to buy on 1 March 2011, the shares are down 60.2% versus our Europe Small & Mid Cap universe. We believe the underperformance is due to continued concerns on Ocado's capacity expansion capability and the potential impact from rising competition on its revenue growth.

This is bad news for finance director Duncan Tatton-Brown, who bought 50,000 shares at 98.91p each. His wife Kate bought the same amount at 99.57p. At the moment they are sitting on a loss of more than £24,500 between them.

Next Thursday we'll have an interim statement from online grocer Ocado , covering the 12 weeks to 5 August. It's had a rocky ride since flotation in 2010. Although the shares did briefly breach 250p, they're currently trading for less than half their 180p flotation price, at 74p.

There are several reasons for bearishness, but the biggest is fears over the firm's ability to get its capacity high enough to achieve any kind of meaningful profit without needing fresh capital. Still, the coming year could be the turnaround point from loss into profit, so this looks like being an important update.

You would think that Olympic fever would have been good for online retailers. Who wanted to tear themselves away from the telly to shop? Yet for Ocado, the web grocer, this doesn’t appear to have been the case. Investors will find out on Thursday, when the company unveils third-quarter earnings. Barclays has pencilled in a slowdown in sales growth, from 13% to 11%. The Olympic effect, however, is a one-off. More pressing concerns remain. Can Ocado keep its lenders at bay while it struggles to establish a steadily profitable business? Through the first six months of the year, it eked out a pre-tax profit of £200,000. As it works out the kinks of its first big warehouse, and puts the finishing touches to its second, things should improve. Meanwhile, the company is getting dangerously close to breaching the terms of a £100m loan. Ocado is nearing the end of its big investment programme, and sales are on the rise, but if even if all goes perfectly, it is cutting it fine. Barclays said: “Our forecasts do not imply a breach of covenants, but nor do we expect much headroom. Ocado’s lenders may cut some slack to the company given the clear tipping point in view.” Fingers crossed, writes The Sunday Times´ Danny Fortson.

Ocado also crept 0.45 lower to 73.6p ahead of the release of a trading update on Thursday. Pessimistic Panmure Gordon analyst Philip Dorgan reiterated his view that the group’s days as a public company are “limited” and cautioned investors “we don’t think that the equity is worth very much”.

The finance director and his wife bought OCDO at 99p a month ago. Looks like he has no clue how his company's doing...


Online grocery store Ocado Group (OCDO) saw sales growth in its third quarter, ended 5th August, slow to 9.9%, bringing total growth for the first three quarters of the year to 11.3%. The company blamed the decline on disruptions caused by the Queen's Jubilee and Olympics, although it noted that it was able to preserve margins by not resorting to short-term vouchering activity. The firm hopes to see increased sales growth in the final quarter, but does not expect consumer volatility to end any time soon. The shares sank by 2.8p to 64.4p.

Not one I follow - but the chart looks interesting.

yep agree with skinny.

Had these guys last sat and from online order everything was perfect.

Polite deliveryman, 97p delivery charge on a saturday...(others a £5
iver)

Great bags and strong.

Grub evens with most, BUT still more expensive than ASDA.

ASDA is nos 1 around here W Yorkshire, cant beat it.

Waiting for then to list.

Tesco gone down the nick.

Sainsbury expensive but no better quality.

yep agree with skinny.

Had these guys last sat and from online order everything was perfect.

Polite deliveryman, 97p delivery charge on a saturday...(others a £5
iver)

Great bags and strong.

Grub evens with most, BUT still more expensive than ASDA.

ASDA is nos 1 around here W Yorkshire, cant beat it.

Waiting for then to list.

Tesco gone down the nick.

Sainsbury expensive but no better quality.

A double endorsement!

Breakout on cards...........

20 Dec Ocado Group Plc OCDO Exane BNP Paribas Outperform 0.00 79.95 90.00 90.00 Reiterates

SP TARGET 90p.

Going very well this morning...nice.

23.69% of stock on loan as of 17th Dec.

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

sCHHHHH sCHHHHHH

Sugar.

Im going for it then Skinny ....head first.

GLADIATOR.

Marks or morrisons will take this out @£2.00 min imho.

Interim Management Statement

Strategic and operational highlights

· Our second customer fulfilment centre at Dordon, Warwickshire ("CFC2") became fully operational during the period, with stock building commencing in January and first customer orders being delivered on 24 February. The ramp up of CFC2 is progressing well.

· The Hatfield Customer Fulfilment Centre ("CFC1") continues to operate with improved efficiency.

· Our first dedicated non-food distribution centre became fully operational in January, one month ahead of schedule, supporting the strategy for further sales and range growth in non-food.

· We continued to improve our customer offering through the introduction of the Ocado Smart Pass which combines the benefits of our popular Delivery Pass and Saving Pass schemes, to give greater value and service to more of our customers.

Ocado confirms talks re technology agreement

Ocado Group PLC (" Ocado") confirms that it is in discussions with Wm. Morrison Supermarkets Plc ("Morrison") which may lead to an agreement to license certain of Ocado's existing and future intellectual property ("IP") and operating knowledge for the purposes of Morrison commencing an online grocery business in the UK.

These negotiations do not involve any discussion of Morrison acquiring either the whole of, or an equity stake in, Ocado.

Any such agreement would be complementary to Ocado's existing partnership with Waitrose, which would be unaffected by any potential agreement with Morrison.

Both parties are working towards an agreement and a further announcement will be made in due course. However, discussions are ongoing and there can be no certainty that an agreement will be reached.

Hey hlyeo.....looks like the FD does know how his company is doing.....LOL