Sunday 12 August 2012

Ocado: Funny Business

If there's one thing that we three all agree upon here at Capitalist Towers (and that's moot - Ed), it's that Ocado is a funny old business.  We've each sniped at it over the months, and now it seems an end-game is in prospect.

If anyone needed yet more ammo against the way the City sometimes operates, well, this is rather small-calibre stuff.  But it's not healthy.  Caveat emptor, because some of the vendors are in need of very careful scrutiny.

ND

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Further proof that net, net the City and its banksters are toxic to UK plc

Anonymous said...

I don't get it... Anyone with a quarter of a brain must have seen the mass of negative comment at the floating of Ocado and avoided said like a case of the clap?

Steven_L said...

But you didn't recommend a short at 250p though did you ND?

Budgie said...

Ocado pear

shaped?

Nick Drew said...

Steven - well done that man! (as it happens I don't do equities ...)

Budgie - or indeed a lemon

or a droop

anons - it's very odd, I agree

Alex said...

I don't know the whole Ocado story but racking up an extra £60m of debt while making a £210m investment doesn't seem all bad to me.

Not that I would expect the average stockbroker who seem to think that any debt is a bad thing would understand.

I guess the basic problem for Ocado is that under any standard business analysis it is going to get squeezed, and it only got started because of the innate conservatism of its potential competitors. The longer it stays in business the more inclined they will be to muscle in on its customers.

The problem I have is that it was the stockbrokers who were hyping its half-baked business strategy a few years ago, and it is now stockbrokers (possibly not the same ones) who are now talking it down.