Ocado shareholders hope results bring news of progress

The Week Ahead

The Ocado website (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Long-suffering shareholders of Ocado will hope that tomorrow’s annual results bring news of progress in the online supermarket’s pursuit of its first deal overseas.

The FTSE 250 company had promised to sign a deal with a foreign partner last year to match its current licensing deals with the UK supermarket chains Morrisons and Waitrose.

However, with no sign of an agreement and the threat of Amazon’s arrival in the UK grocery market, investors have become increasingly anxious and the shares have suffered accordingly, down 30 per cent over the past couple of months.

Of course, the short-sellers in Ocado, of which there are many, are hoping for more delays. A sizeable 16.7 per cent of the firm’s shares are on loan to investors hoping the share price will fall so they can buy them back at a cheaper price for profit.

However, if Amazon attempts to buy the company on the cheap – as vague speculation has hinted it might – their efforts will be thwarted.

Today, telecoms giant BT, which has just completed its £12.5bn takeover of mobile operator EE, announces its third-quarter results. The regulator may have waved through the deal for EE, but Ofcom is currently investigating whether BT should split off Openreach, which controls the last mile of fibre that runs to homes.

Tomorrow, BP will reveal the impact of lower oil prices on its fourth-quarter results.

On Wednesday, drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline unveils fourth-quarter results, amid speculation that chief executive Sir Andrew Witty is considering offloading its consumer healthcare arm – with Reckitt Benckiser, Unilever and Proctor & Gamble all said to be interested.

Other notable releases this week include a third-quarter trading statement from catalytic converter maker Johnson Matthey on Wednesday, and a trading update from Vodafone on Thursday.

Across the Atlantic, Google parent Alphabet brings out its fourth-quarter earnings tomorrow, as does supercar maker Ferrari.

Global markets are likely to take their lead from China, which brings out manufacturing data for January. This is expected to show an improvement on December but the sector will still be contracting.