Ocado's £200m robot deal should impress foreign supermarkets

Ocado’s value improved by £1.3bn, or 8%, on Monday, an impressive gain. But one can safely say the jump wasn’t driven by the unremarkable news that the sheds and vans are still running at full capacity.

The extra activity will produce £20m more profit for Ocado this year than expected in September – useful but not game-changing.

Rather, the fizz related to the company’s other news – two acquisitions to boost “robotic manipulation capabilities”. Ocado is buying San Francisco-based Kindred Systems for $262m (£201m) and Las Vegas-based robotic arm designer Haddington Dynamics for $25m.

The former deal, the big one, looks at first glance to be highly expensive given that the arriving revenues are forecast to be only $35m next year.

But Ocado is primarily valued as a technology company these days – a seller of smart logistics to foreign supermarket chains – and anything that burnishes the cutting-edge credentials tends to go down well

Reference: The Guardian: Nils Pratley  1 day ago