Ocado Group Plc said Luke Jensen, the executive director who has led the British company’s push to license its robotic grocery delivery technology worldwide, is retiring.
(Bloomberg) — Ocado Group Plc said Luke Jensen, the executive director who has led the British company’s push to license its robotic grocery delivery technology worldwide, is retiring.
Jensen will step down as chief executive officer of Ocado Solutions on Sept. 30 and will be replaced by John Martin, currently a non-executive director at the company, according to a statement Thursday.
Shares fell 10% in early London trading.
Ocado is best known in Britain for its grocery delivery joint venture with Marks & Spencer Group Plc but its lofty and often volatile stock valuation lies on the potential promise of rolling out robotic software to supermarkets around the world.
Jensen has been a key part of that roll-out since he became CEO of the division in 2017. He was instrumental in signing the first international partnership with Bon Preu in 2017 as well as the most recent agreement with retailer Lotte in Korea. Ocado Solutions is now partnered with 12 of the world’s biggest food retailers including Kroger Co.
Jensen’s retirement is a surprise and a “slight negative” as he has built the Ocado Solutions business from scratch, according to William Woods, an analyst at Bernstein.
“The Ocado Solutions business is a testament to his hard work, if you follow him on LinkedIn you will see he has been traveling consistently for most of the last two years,” said Woods, adding that the succession has been planned for a while and “there should be no concerns in the handover.”
In recent days Ocado settled a long-running dispute over patent infringements with Norwegian robotics company AutoStore Holdings Ltd. which lifted the stock.
AutoStore agreed to pay the UK company £200 million ($259 million) in 24 monthly installments, starting this month and both companies agreed to withdraw their legal actions against each other.
The two firms have been locked in a global legal fight for years over Ocado’s warehouse system, where robots move thousands of customer orders as they glide around a chessboard-like grid.
Ocado is one of the most shorted stocks in the London stock market, and surged 25% on Wednesday, triggering volatility halts during afternoon trading.
The shares rose to 960.4 pence at the close Wednesday, boosting the online grocer’s market value to about £7.9 billion, an increase of £1.6 billion.
(Updates with analyst comment in sixth and seventh paragraphs.)
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