British online grocer Ocado Group shares jumped as much as 47% in London, the most in more than five years, following a Times report on “speculation of bid interest” from technology firms such as Amazon.com, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
The report, which did not specify the source of the information and was released late Wednesday, said Amazon and several other tech “heavyweights” were considering the merits of a bid worth $10.21 (800 pence) per share for the company.
Kroger has had an exclusive partnership with Ocado since 2018 in an effort to spur the Cincinnati-based company’s delivery output via the construction of robotically operated warehouses in the U.S.
So far, Kroger is currently live with eight Ocado sites, with 16 ordered.
The initial deal saw Kroger identify 20 sites to build automated warehouses, or customer fulfillment centers (CFCs) as Ocado calls them, in the U.S. That progress has been slow, but despite that Ocado CEO Tim Steiner said earlier this year that Kroger is indeed committed to building more.
“They are committed to building more, they just want to make those (existing) ones work as well as they can before they roll out loads – very sensible thing to do,” Steiner told Reuters.
He said Kroger remained “extremely positive” about the relationship.
It’s unclear at this time how an Amazon takeover could affect that partnership. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment at time of publication.
Earlier this year, Ocado itself paused the rollout of its own new UK distribution centers after posting a record annual loss of more than $639 million (£500 million), according to reporting from The Guardian.
The online grocery retailer said it expected to receive almost 40% less than hoped in performance payments from Marks & Spencer, its partner in the UK venture, because of the “challenging market” affecting sales and profits.
