Member Info for SFH300

"Citigroup cuts abrdn to 'sell' (neutral) - price target 150 (205) pence"

SELL.

To quote Jack Pallance as Curly in the movie City Slickers: the day ain't over yet.

Pokerchips:

"The net proceeds of the Capital Raise is expected to give Ocado Group enough liquidity to fund the requirements of its existing and expected customer commitments into the mid-term, with no additional Group financing expected as the business becomes cash flow positive."

This seems to be all about staying afloat ("existing ... commitments"). "Expected customer commitments" and the fact that cash flow positive isn't going to be achieved for several years reveals the speculative nature of the stated reason for this raise.

You sound like a Tory minister. Like the British electorate, though, the market isn't impressed - 4% down (10:18am).

I don't care any more. I'm utterly sick of this share. I might as well donate the vestige of my investment to an animal charity, it might buy them a couple of tins of dog food.

For info, AUD$0.54 = c.£0.31 (31p).

You should have received the payment by now. I think it was all due to have been completed by May 31st in the UK and mid-June in the US. You should see it in your cash account. If not, contact your broker. You won't have seen the B shares in your account at all as they were redeemed immediately. It's that cash from that redemption that should be in your cash account.

Yep IAPR. I had a similar experience when my mother died last year. She had some shares in Lloyds Bank. I can't recall the exact figures, but they ended up keeping more than 50% of the value.

... is up (2.03% at time of writing), presumably on the RNS news, but there's an awful lot of selling going on. 92% sells vs 8% buys ( just one trade). Hmm.

I'm 50% down on OCDO now. I'm sending my bank details to the company so they can just take as much of my money as they like. Might as well.

Valueplay - I can only say a number of Times journos off the top of my head. But I think Simply Wall St were also suggesting it.

"That inflation figure is incredibly high. A figure that would have been laughed at by all if you predicted it in January.. The economic environment has changed incredibly quickly"

The CPI in January was 5.5% and there were plenty of media pundits predicting a doubling by summer, even before Russia decided to give their military personnel the trip of a lifetime to a neighbouring country.

Also, from the replacement RNS:

"The original announcement erroneously stated that 12,578,616 shares had been placed with Baillie Gifford, raising gross proceeds of approximately £99,999,997. This should have been 11,100,000 shares placed, raising gross proceeds of approximately £88,245,000."

Valueplay - I'm not sure Proactive have got it right. This is from today's Times:

"Baillie Gifford, the investment management company, took about 12.6 million shares in the placing, raising around £99.9 million for Ocado. Capital Group, the US financial services company, took more than 7.5 million shares, raising about £60.1 million, and Apple III Trust, controlled by Jorn Rausing, the Swedish packaging billionaire whose father founded Tetra Pak, took slightly fewer, raising about £59.8 million."

https://stocks.apple.com/AbGRN8EtzSpKwEC-5_EE9Tw

"The net proceeds of the Capital Raise is expected to give Ocado Group enough liquidity to fund the requirements of its existing and expected customer commitments into the mid-term ... "

It's the inclusion of "existing" that is of concern.

Closing at 8pm today. Original close date was 8am 23 June.

From Primary Bid:

"Company announcement
The Company is pleased to announce its intention to conduct a non-pre-emptive placing of approximately £575m of new ordinary shares of 2 pence each in the capital of the Company.

Use of proceeds
The net proceeds of the Capital Raise is expected to give Ocado Group enough liquidity to fund the requirements of its existing and expected customer commitments into the mid-term, with no additional Group financing expected as the business becomes cash flow positive."

£575m? Hot on the heels of today's Times piece, this seems delusional.

*deliver.

On Friday HL pushed IBST as one of three shares to help in a recession (alongside Microsoft and Wise). Today it was down almost 5%. The HL kiss of death.

'While the debate rages about its technology, Ocado’s retail division — half-owned by Marks & Spencer after a £750 million deal — is also facing scrutiny over fears that the soaring cost of living will prompt shoppers to start trading down. Steve Rowe, M&S’s recently departed boss, said last month that his shoppers were more affluent than the average and spent £3.5 billion on online groceries a year, but only £600 million via Ocado.

Rowe also highlighted that once the online grocer had enough warehouses and capacity it would gain more customers, but Ocado Retail is building more warehouses at a time when the online grocery market is declining to such an extent that the company had to put out a surprise profit warning last month after a sharp slowdown in sales. The division halved its growth forecasts, saying that it expected sales to grow by less than 5 per cent rather than the 10 per cent it had predicted previously. That surprise prompted Peel Hunt, a long-time supporter, to cut its earnings targets for this year by 73 per cent to £40 million.

Steiner said: “Over the longer term, we [Ocado Retail] still expect to grow by 10 per cent to 20 per cent and there will be an inflection point when the efficiencies are such that online grocery will be very competitively priced to hypermarkets, and then it will really explode.”

Figures from Kantar, the market researcher, have shown that shoppers are already switching to cheaper own-brands and are trading down. Much has been made of the Audis, Range Rovers and BMWs in the car parks of Aldi and Lidl as the discounters have won over the middle classes, traditionally Waitrose and Ocado shoppers, with cheap wine and the thrill of a bargain.

Steiner said: “Groceries are a Giffen good [non-luxury items that generate higher demand when prices rise]. In our baskets there might be some trading down to cheaper goods, but there will also be extra meals going in as more people stop eating out. The easiest way to save £16 isn’t by cutting back on online food shopping, it will be by not eating out or not having takeaway deliveries.”

While Ocado’s share price is back at 2019 levels, having lost all its advances during the pandemic, the company’s backers argue that it is a much bigger business than it was three years ago, when it was yet to build an international warehouse. However, investors will have to wait three more years for real income to start pouring into the business from its retail partners’ warehouses — and a volatile stock market has little patience.'

3/Ends