Looking beyond the barrage of proprietary metrics and acronyms that Ocado presents in its financial results, there's only one number that investors really need to pay attention to: the bottom line. Suffice to say, Ocado once again failed to deliver a full-year pre-tax profit.
Despite managing a small half-year profit, difficulties at its customer fulfilment centre (CFC) meant it failed to build on this – even though it reported a decent 16 per cent net sales growth in the period. Ocado also blamed ongoing upgrade work at its CFC for an across-the-board deterioration in its service metrics, most notably a 260 basis point fall in on-time deliveries to 92.3 per cent. Meanwhile, the group more than doubled capital expenditure to £126m as it splashed out on a second CFC and an expansion of its existing delivery network. That took net debt to £19m, with £79m of borrowing facilities remaining and significant expenditure still to come ahead of the opening of the second CFC in a year's time.
Broker Panmure Gordon expects a full-year loss per share of 1.94p (0.75p loss per share for 2011).
OCADO (OCDO) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ORD PRICE: | 84p | MARKET VALUE: | £469m | |
| TOUCH: | 83-84p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 290p | LOW: 52p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | NIL | PE RATIO: | NA | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 31p | NET DEBT: | 11% | |
| Year to 27 Nov | Turnover (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 273 | -40.2 | -12.1 | nil |
| 2008 | 321 | -33.3 | -9.80 | nil |
| 2009 | 402 | -25.5 | -6.10 | nil |
| 2010 | 516 | -12.1 | -1.63 | nil |
| 2011 | 598 | -2.42 | -0.10 | nil |
| % change | +16 | - | - | - |
