Double downgrade wipes £85m off Ocado’s shares

OCADO saw £85m wiped off its value as the number of customers choosing to do their weekly food shop online continued to slow.

UBS slapped the online supermarket with a double downgrade, cutting its target price by 225p to 200p and lowering it to ‘sell’ from ‘buy’. After online customer growth halved across all grocery chains last year, the broker said Ocado will be hit hard.

In a further blow, it said the company will also struggle to keep prices down in the face of rising UK inflation, with market-leader Tesco set to be more competitive. Ocado price-matches Tesco as part of its ‘low-price promise’.

UK consumers were hit last month when inflation made a surprise lurch to 2.3pc, soaring past the Bank of England’s 2pc target.

Ocado shares sank 5.4pc, or 13.5p, to 238.5p.

Meanwhile, Tesco shares rose 2.4pc, or 4.5p, to 189.7p.

The FTSE 100 finished up 0.6pc, or 46.2 points, at 7,349.4.

The US air strike on Syria, combined

with a drop in iron ore prices, spooked investors out of mining stocks. Anglo American sank 0.8pc, or 9.5p to 1235.5p.

But the growing political tension helped to push oil prices past $55 a barrel while the gold price rose 0.5pc to a five-month high of $1252.50 an ounce.

Randgold Resources shot up to the top of the FTSE, with shares soaring 4.3pc, or 305p, to 7410p.

ITV was hit by a falling interest in television advertising, with JP Morgan cutting the broadcaster to ‘neutral’ from ‘overweight’. Despite growing content revenue to 33pc in recent years, analysts said ITV is still too heavily reliant on advertising payments. The broadcaster faced another blow earlier this week when rumours of a takeover bid by cable firm Liberty Global were dismissed. After an initial plunge, shares closed down 0.5pc, or 1p, at 215.7p.

An upgrade by RBC gave UK asset managers Standard Life and

Aberdeen a boost ahead of their £11bn merger.

The broker awarded Aberdeen an ‘outperform’ rating while moving Standard Life up to ‘perform’ and lifting its target price by 50p to 370p.

Aberdeen, which has suffered losses for 15 quarters in a row, has seen a reverse in fortunes since the merger was announced last month.

Numis raised the company to ‘buy’ from ‘add’ last week after chief executives Martin Gilbert and Keith Skeoch announced how their cosy ‘co-chief executive’ roles will work. Aberdeen shares rocketed 4.2pc, or 11.1p, to 278.4p, while Standard Life leapt 3.6pc, or 12.9p, to 368.7p. Capital & Counties

Properties edged up after confirming it was close to selling its exhibition business, which owns Olympia in London.

After trading closed, the firm announced it had sold the business, called Venues, for £296m, to several German pension schemes.

It will use the money to pay off a £50m debt and invest in its existing London properties.

Shares closed up 1.5pc, or 4.5p, to 312.3p.

Hollywood Bowl shares were knocked below their listing price after a leading investor sold its £40m take.

British investment trust Electra Partners made back nearly four times what they paid for a chunk of the UK’s largest ten-pin bowling operator, which runs Bowlplex.

Hollywood Bowl shares rose to 168p earlier this week after it reiterated plans to build two bowling alleys a year until 2020.

Electra partner Bill Priestley will step down from Hollywood Bowl’s board. Shares dropped 3.3pc, or 5.5p, to 162.5p.