One of the founders of Ocado has questioned the judgement of its business partner John Lewis for selling its stake in the business before the recent share price ramp.
Gissing used an interview with Management Today to deride John Lewis' decision to reduce the shareholding to nothing as 'ironic' in light of the current valuation - just below £4 a share.
John Lewis, which owns Ocado's main supplier Waitrose, transferred its shareholding in Ocado to its pension fund which then sold off the 10.4 per cent stake fopr 265 pence a share in 2011. The sale came a year after Ocado floated in 2010 for 180 pence a share.
Gissing said: 'I think it's ironic that, at one point, John Lewis owned 44 per cent of our business. Now the most vibrant part of their operation is johnlewis.com. They could have gone from 44 per cent to 49 to 51 and eventually owning 100 per cent of us..... which they could plug johnlewis.com into. Then they'd have what Jeff Bezos dreams of creating in the future.'
Gissing gave the interview alongside Ocado co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner who recently entered a war of words with Waitrose managing director Mark Price.
Price, who is tied into a contract with Ocado until 2017 but who is also pushing Waitrose.com, called his lawyers to examine breach-of-contract issues after Ocado signed a separate partnership with mass-market grocer Morrisons.
During the wide ranging interview, in which the pair talked about issues including their time at Goldman Sachs, the state of the banking system and the praise they received from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Steiner told the magazine: 'It's all over [the spat the Waitrose].'
He continued: 'It was a misunderstanding. I had a chat with Charlie (Mayfield, John Lewis Partnership chairman) and he's fine. There is no bad will.' When pushed on his relationship with Price he replied: 'Well, Charlie is boss...' - a remark unlikely to help his relationship with Price, who was promoted to John Lewis Partnership deputy chairman in July.
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