Trending tickers: Instacart l Ocado l Kingfisher l Nikola Corporation
Instacart (CART)
Following in the footsteps of Arm (ARM) and RayzeBio (RYZB) last week, the trading of Instacart's stock is set to begin on the Nasdaq (^IXIC) exchange in the US later on Tuesday under the ticker symbol “CART.”
On Monday, the company, which filed for the initial public offering (IPO) as "Maplebear", priced its IPO of stock at $30 a share, raising $660m (£532.7m) for the grocery delivery company.
The price gives Instacart a market value of around $10bn.
Instacart is the market leader among third-party grocery delivery companies, according to market research firm YipitData.
However, the company faces competition from others, including DoorDash (DASH) and Uber Eats (UBER). It also competes with Walmart (WMT), which offers its own delivery service.
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Yahoo Finance Live's Julie Hyman said strong debuts in IPO market, from firms such as Instacart and Klaviyo could be enough to thaw some of the IPO freeze seen in the last 18 months.
Taking another cue from Arm, Instacart has also lined up big investors to support its listing, including PepsiCo (PEP), which is buying $175m of Instacart’s preferred convertible stock, according to Bloomberg.
Instacart has also enlisted Norway’s Norges Bank, TCV, Sequoia, D1 Capital Partners LP and Valiant Capital Management as cornerstone investors that could take up to 60% of the shares, according to its prospectus.
Ocado (OCDO.L)
Shares in online grocer Ocado climbed 2.89% on Tuesday after the company said its revenue rose 7.2% to £569.6m in the 13 weeks to 27 August, accelerating from growth of 5% in the first half.
It said the results of its venture with M&S (MKS.L) reflected a 1.5% rise in active customers to 961,000 at the end of the quarter, with average orders per week up 1.9% year-on-year to 381,000.
Since June, Ocado, like other grocery stores, has reduced the prices of more than 630 of its items to help consumers with high costs.
Ocado also maintained its full-year outlook.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said things are looking up for Ocado’s joint venture with Marks & Spencer. However, he noted the average basket size is still shrinking, which means it is not a full house for Ocado in terms of progress.
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“Ocado has been singing the same song for a while — promising to make operations more efficient, offer better value for money products and more choice.
“The M&S joint venture was never broken; it was simply stuck in the mud. Nonetheless, this retail business is effectively its shop window for prospective grocery clients.
“If Ocado wants to convince more grocers to use its logistics platform and systems, its JV with M&S needs to be operating flawlessly. So, the more trading updates it can issue such as the latest one, the better it looks in future client negotiations.”
Kingfisher (KGF.L)
Shares in B&Q parent company Kingfisher plunged 6% on Tuesday morning after it downgraded its annual profit forecast by 7% following a drop in sales in Poland and France, offset by a pick-up in the UK and Ireland.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, said: “The scale of the challenges is clear. Lower gross profit in France and Poland, coupled with additional operating costs in the UK and Ireland caused by higher pay and energy rates left their stain on trading, with seasonal sales also impacted by the weather and dropping by 5.9%, although improving towards the latter end of the half.
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“Gross margin also dipped under the pressure by 0.4% to 36.3%, while a marginal increase in overall sales was in line with expectations,” he said.
The group now expects pre-tax profit of around £590m for the 12 months to the end of January.
Kingfisher also announced a new £300m share buyback, starting in October.
Nikola Corporation (NKLA)
Investors will also be keeping across Nikola stock after the company's announcement of a new COO sent its stock up 34%.
Mary Chan was president, COO and a managing partner at VectorIQ II, a follow-on SPAC that refunded investor money following the bursting of the SPAC bubble of 2020-2021.
“Mary brings a solid understanding of business, combined with extensive experience in technology and transportation, spanning both engineering and management. Her expertise will be a tremendous asset to the Nikola team,” Nikola president and CEO Steve Girsky said on Monday.
Chan will oversee the company’s engineering, program, product, supply chain and manufacturing teams when she takes up her new role in October.
Girsky said her hiring will help the company to streamline decision-making processes and bolster Nikola’s reputation for excellence in engineering and manufacturing.
Watch: Instacart, Klaviyo to go public, but IPO market remains challenged: Expert
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