Ocado CEO Tim Steiner plans to retain its stake in Ocado Retail, its joint venture with M&S, as the deal reaches its five-year milestone, a point at which either party could choose to sell their shares to the other.
During its annual meeting this month, M&S said Ocado Retail’s profitability “was clearly not where we want it to be,” but reaffirmed its commitment to the turnaround strategy led by the joint venture’s CEO Hannah Gibson.
“It’s all symmetrical in terms of rights and obligations on each side, but right now we’re super happy owning half of it,” Steiner told the FT.
-
Related Story
-
Steiner told the FT that the right ownership structure for the joint venture was unclear.
“Is the right model that [Ocado Group] continues to own part of it, M&S owns part of it, maybe some part of it is listed or something like that in the future?”
Back in 2019 M&S struck a £750m deal for 50% of Ocado Retail, as it looked to ramp up its online food sales.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
