Ocado shares fell 18 per cent as it plans to scale back its research and development (R&D) staff after another year of heavy losses.
The group, which runs robotic warehouses for other chains alongside its Ocado Retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer, has spent more than £800million on R&D over the past four years.
Chief executive Tim Steiner declined to say how many jobs would go, but claimed it would be ‘significantly’ fewer than the 1,000 redundancies in 2023-24.
He added: ‘It’s never something that’s easy or that we take lightly. It’s a very difficult day for us to have to announce that.’
The group, which employs nearly 20,000 people, has R&D sites across the world, with about half in the UK. It lost £374.5million for the year to December 1, down year-on-year £393.6million. Revenues rose 14.1 per cent to £3.2billion – but shares fell 18.1 per cent, or 1.59p, to 273p.
The firm is still in talks with Ocado Retail partner M&S over a final payment of £190.7million due in April under their £750m tie-up.
The venture has failed to meet performance, with Ocado saying last February that it could take legal action against M&S over the payment.
Losses: Ocado, which runs robotic warehouses for other chains alongside its Ocado Retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer, has spent more than £800m on R&D over the past four years
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