Newsmakers: Ocado
Online grocery firm gives no payout to departing founder. Is that a moral stance, or not?The co-founder and Commercial Director of Ocado, Jason Gissing, has found his own delivery slot and will leave the organisation in May.
His aim is to spend more time with his four kids and to engage with ‘environmental and social causes.’
A laudable ambition – especially when you consider Gissing’s background. Not only does he hail from a privileged Oxbridge background (he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club, alongside George Osborne) but he also spent his formative working years as a bond trader at Goldman Sachs.
GS being, of course, not necessarily noted for its love of people who don’t wear top hats or eat swans off the family silver.
Gissing has resigned and will receive no payoff. Ocado Chief Executive Tim Steiner was this week reported as saying: ‘Jason will be paid as normal. There is no funny money for the boys.’
However, in other news, some city analysts are questioning the seriousness of money paid out to the remaining Ocado directors, including Steiner.
A bonus pot of £5.5 million is being carved up between four of them, even though Ocado made a £12.5m loss last year, a substantial downturn from the £0.6m loss posted the year before.
‘We struggle to think what the annual incentives would have been if Ocado had made a profit,” wagged Clive Black, an analyst at Shore Capital, in conversation with The Guardian.
Gissing isn’t getting any of this pot. But he will keep his shares in the organisation, currently valued at £90m.
So on the one hand, an interesting moral statement.
On the other, the often bewildering reality of dot-com capitalism.
No wonder the morality of reward is as confused and confusing as ever.
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