Ocado Group Plc shares tumbled after its Canadian partner temporarily halted the planned launch of an automated warehouse in Vancouver run by the British online grocery company.
Empire Company Ltd.’s subsidiary Sobeys and Ocado are also ending their exclusivity agreement in a setback for the British firm, according to a statement Thursday. The fourth Sobeys warehouse operated by Ocado was supposed to be operational next year.
Ocado shares fell as much as 16 per cent after the announcement, meaning they are now down 60 per cent this year.
Ocado was founded by three former Goldman Sachs bankers and sees its future as a maker of automated warehouses for supermarkets around the world. In the U.K., it’s best known for Ocado Retail, its online grocery venture with Marks & Spencer Group Plc.
The company is under pressure to demonstrate the success of its automated warehousing technology after a series of annual losses.
Chief Executive Officer Tim Steiner has said he wants Ocado to become the “Tesla of Grocery” and that the company’s robot-operated warehouses are worth the investment.
However, last year Steiner admitted that Ocado’s customers were not rolling out warehouses as fast as it would like, commenting after Kroger Co. the U.S. grocery chain, paused the rollout of new warehouses. Kroger is Ocado’s biggest customer.
In Australia, Ocado has also faced some delays in opening a Melbourne-based warehouse for Australian supermarket Coles Group Ltd.
“We see this as bad news for Ocado as Canada has been performing well and adds to another partner who is pulling back (alongside Kroger and problems at Coles),” said William Woods, an analyst at Bernstein. “We think this is related to the weak rebound in online volumes across all markets which is challenging the unit economics of ramping the customer fulfillment centers.”
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