It is still a little premature to launch a campaign to save Ocado for the nation and keep it out of the clammy hands of Amazon. No offer has been launched. Neither company would comment on the bid rumours on Thursday. The stock market, where Ocado’s shares soared 32%, may have misread the plot. But there’s no harm in getting in early. If it comes to it, one hopes Tim Steiner, Ocado’s chief executive, tells the Amazonians to get stuffed.
Admittedly, Ocado has been a jam-tomorrow story for most of its 13, mostly loss-making, years as a public company. There was a hurrah, and excited talk about “the Microsoft of retail”, when, from 2018, deals started to be signed with overseas food retailers to supply robots, warehouses and online expertise. And there was a bigger hurrah when the pandemic inflated the values of everything techie. Ocado’s shares flew as high as £28.
