I may invest in Ocado, but there’s a lot of issue first.
I was leading the last firefighting team to evacuate moments before the Andover site collapsed. The storage areas are stuffed with minimum clearance for picking robots. Heat bulid up and speed of units will be factors going forward. The bigger/busier they get the more chance of another accident.
Local issues with drivers( Haven’t got enough) managers (too many and clueless) and staff (low paid but seem to really care) have put me off at this price. It’ll need to go to £13 at least before I risk investment.
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My partner just started at Ocado, in the department that deals with issues that arise once Ocado’s tech is set up for a company.
They’re expanding their staff massively to accommodate for when all of their 30 or so planned CFCs open, when at the moment there’s only 6 or so. It seems like they’re aiming big, which is positive, but I guess only time will tell if they’ll adapt to the increased workload
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Looking at their structure, on paper it’s extreamly efficient and amazing. But there’s little room for error.
Look at the factory fire in Andover. The system kept working after several faults weren’t found, some say hundreds of issue arose and the machinery kept working with worn out parts, damaged crates and human error. These didn’t help once the over heating started and robots passed fire between themselves.
On paper everything is perfect, but in the real world the maximum storage vs reduced walkways and improved speeds of units… can’t be a good thing. Noting is perfect in the real world, humans, animals and nature get in the way.
The programming needs to be perfect, conditions perfect, robots perfect and stock perfect for the model to work and keep working.
One broken bottle, one leaking milk or cracked egg, one leaky roof panel or cracked window could be the failure of the whole system. It’s happened once, it can happen again.
I don’t think it’s quite as knife edge as you suggest. In fact I think being able to operate at 90% effectiveness ( while they dealt with the isolated fire ) shows the resilience of the business.
I agree their are hurdles ahead for the business but finding the logistics solution to groceries is a fantastic opportunity.
Think the share price just got a little ahead of its self… Let’s hope our solutions clients agree were the best around at the minute and demand more cfc’s
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Has anyone got the lowdown on their current lawsuit with a similar robotic fulfilment company? Not sure how significant this is.
Decent, thanks for being my news source 
. Looks like it had a little 7% jump, I hadn’t been following it too closely.
I’m up about 62%, but holding them for the long term prospects of the company.
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This is one I has but culled when I felt like I was spread really thin and couldn’t actively follow them all. I think the was a mistake
I see them as very well positioned to provide the technological fulfilment service for traditional supermarkets, which is what they’re doing now.
I also saw one of the top technology people from Ocado present at a rail event that I was at and he showed their designs for essentially using their automated fulfilment technology to load train carriages with containers from lorries. I pretty much invested because I thought wow, this is a company that’s trying to innovate.
Anyone interested in the topic, I just found a paper about it online:
18.-Ocado.pdf (565.4 KB)
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Thanks for sharing, its a fascinating concept as fright/rail haven’t been innovated in years. Ocado’s construction and design capabilities can be exploited in many industries, which helps them to diversify their products/services and income streams.
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I just wrote to investor relations actually to see if they have anything else in the pipeline outside core business. Will see what they say.
Any other technology companies like this worth looking at in the UK? I can only find real innovation companies in the US and China.
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Their reply for anyone interested:
Not much to update on. Not that they would share what they’re working on either way .
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I love that they take the time to reply and put effort into it. Even if it was investor relations
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Investor Relations are pretty cool, I never really hear of people utilising them. I quizzed facebook investor relations on why their operating costs went up by $5B one year and they said “it was the $5B fine we paid” lol.
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Just a cost of doing business, like an chemical company paying a fine for dumping stuff into rivers.
Has anyone looked into acado news recently? Pretty poor performance
I got out of Ocado at the beginning of the year. I still have it on my watchlist and it has basically halved since then. Had a look as to why the sentiment was poor, and thought this article from April was quite interesting.
I think rising rates will mean it’ll be harder for Ocado to sign new corporate customers to their fancy automated warehouses. Supermarkets have just been expanding their current stores on the cheap by bolting on delivery infrastructure.
Here’s the Guardian comparing Ocado’s stock performance to a boring catering company I’d never heard of.
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Results from the funding round / placing. Between Prinary Bid, CEO/CFO/GA & Goldman Sachs clients 72m shares have been issued raising £575m. This would dilute holding by around 10%.
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Wait… I’ve heard this one before. Plus les choses changent plus elles restent les mêmes.
I must be getting old. It reminds me of the time I needed a new heel for my shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em.
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