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* Pretax loss widens to 214.5 mln stg
* Core earnings fall 27% to 43.3 mln stg
* Says underlying performance "encouraging"
* Shares up 1.2%
(Adds detail, CEO quote, shares)
By James Davey
LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - British online supermarket and
technology group Ocado reported a ballooning annual
pretax loss and a 27% fall in core earnings, mainly due to a
fire which destroyed a hi-tech flagship warehouse in Andover,
southern England.
Ocado has transformed itself over the last two years from a
domestic grocery delivery firm to a provider of state-of-the-art
online retail technology, winning partnerships with Kroger
in the United States, Casino in France and most
recently Aeon in Japan.
Those deals have helped push its shares 31% higher in the
last year, giving it an 8.6 billion pound stock market
valuation, well above those of traditional British supermarket
groups such as Sainsbury's, which is worth 4.4 billion
pounds and Marks & Spencer at 3.5 billion pounds,
according to Refinitiv Eikon data.
The shares were up 1.2% at 0830 GMT, even though Ocado said
its loss before tax widened to 214.5 million pounds ($276.8
million) in the year to Dec. 1, 2019 versus 44.4 million pounds
in 2017-18.
The loss reflected exceptional charges of 94.1 million
pounds relating to the write-down of the Andover site.
Ocado made earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBITDA) of 43.3 million pounds ($55.9 million),
versus a re-stated 59.5 million pounds for 2017-18.
That outcome, which also reflected accounting changes and
the costs of share schemes, was broadly in line with analysts'
consensus forecast.
The losses and drop in core earnings were despite a 9%
increase in group revenue to 1.76 billion pounds.
"We are pleased to report results which show strong momentum
in the business," said Chief Executive Tim Steiner.
"Although statutory results reflected a combination of
factors, including the impact of the Andover fire, the
underlying performance of Ocado Retail and the successful growth
of Ocado Solutions were very encouraging."
The Ocado Retail division is now a joint venture between
Ocado Group and M&S. Their deal, completed in August, signalled
the end of Ocado's supply contract with upmarket supermarket
chain Waitrose in September 2020 and the start of M&S' first
grocery home delivery service.
For the 2019-2020 year Ocado forecast retail revenue growth
of 10-15% and invoiced international technology fees growth of
at least 40%.
It forecast EBITDA from retail above its revenue growth.
However, EBITDA from UK solutions & logistics and from
international solutions was forecast to decline.
Prior to Tuesday's update analysts' average forecast for
2019-20 EBITDA was 33 million pounds.
($1 = 0.7751 pounds)
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kirsten Donovan)
