As an online grocery delivery business, Ocado does well when the supermarkets’ tills are jingling on the web and on smartphones. As a technology business, it does well when the world’s big international retailers expand their delivery networks. And as a listed company, it is little short of a phenomenon, loss-making and paying no dividend but managing, nonetheless, to garner a market value of £9.3 billion and a place in the FTSE 100.
It has its detractors — those who, understandably, fret that its valuation is built on expectation over substance — but in terms of pure share price growth, this business has made a lot of investors a lot of money.
Ocado was founded in 2000 by three former partners at Goldman Sachs, one