Good morning, everyone. We're delighted today to announce the signing of a partnership between Ocado Solutions and Lotte Shopping to develop Lotte's online grocery business. Before we discuss the deal, we'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the tragedy in the Itaewon District of Seoul over Halloween weekend. Our thoughts are with our new partner, the South Korean people, and all those affected during this period of national mourning. Together with our team here in Seoul today, I was honored to join new colleagues at Lotte in observing a period of silence to reflect on the tragedy and all those impacted. We're really happy to be working with Lotte, one of the largest business conglomerates in the country, whose interests span hotels, cinemas, chemicals, food production and retail, generating total annual revenue of GBP 45 billion last year.
Lotte is the second-largest grocer in South Korea with more than 1,000 stores nationwide. Lotte now joins 11 other leading grocers around the world whose online businesses will be powered by the unique and proprietary Ocado Smart Platform, and who join the Ocado club of industry trendsetters. Under our agreed contract, Ocado Solutions and Lotte will develop a nationwide fulfillment network with 6 customer fulfillment centers to be ordered by 2028, the equivalent of 30 modules. Ocado's In-Store Fulfillment software will also be rolled out in Lotte's store estate. The CFCs will cover multiple geographies and cater to a wide range of online grocery missions. We plan to implement OSP In-Store Fulfillment in 2024. The first CFC is due to go live in 2025.
This partnership will also bring new technologies announced that Ocado Reimagined for Lotte's operations, as well as new innovations designed to further meet the requirements of densely built urban environments. The structure of fees agreed with Lotte are similar to those agreed with our other international Ocado Solutions partners. Lotte will pay Ocado Solutions certain fees up front and during the development phase, then ongoing fees linked to both sales achieved and installed capacity within the CFC and service criteria. The partnership is exclusive in South Korea on the basis of Lotte in the longer term, ordering an agreed schedule of CFC capacity and in the longer term, meeting mutually agreed market share targets.
Ocado Group expects this deal to add minimal CapEx requirements in financial year 2023, with the majority of additional CapEx spent in the 12 months prior to the opening of CFC, the first of which will be in 2025. We do not believe that this additional CapEx then requires fresh capital, as this forms part of anticipated new business CFC rollout discussed in our recent modeling seminar. We have talked in the past about the fact that these are big and significant deals which take time to negotiate and require a high degree of due diligence. Lotte is a good example of this. Once signed, however, these deals can be transformational for our partner and for the customers they serve.
We are encouraged by our strong pipeline of potential new partners, all of whom recognize the opportunities presented by channel shift online and the outstanding customer experience and partner economics that OSP can provide. We believe that we will sign more deals as our addressable market grows, and we look forward to doing our bit to help change how the world shops for groceries for good. Thank you. Operator, we can move to questions now.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. That is star one for questions. Our first question today comes from William Woods of Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Tim. Thanks for taking the question. I suppose one from me. Can you just tell us you said that you're integrating the reimagined technology into this deal. Could you tell us how that changes the unit economics when you include that reimagined technology? Should we think about that as take rate accretive? Thanks.
I think that you should think about it both as take rate accretive for Ocado Group. I think you should also think about it in terms of improving the client's economics. You should also think about it as improving the proposition that they can offer to their customers. Ocado Reimagined is about a win-win, you know, a win for the customers, a win for our clients and a win for the group.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We move to our next questioner, which is Andrew Gwynn of BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Tim, and congratulations on the deal. Just personally, how similar is similar? Obviously it's been a while since we had a deal, so just maybe a little bit anxious that the terms are subtly softer, but just a little bit of clarity there. Obviously in the U.S., big news, the Kroger and Albertsons. Just wondering if there's any sort of early thoughts or conversations you've had with Kroger about potentially significantly more CFCs in light of a possible deal with Albertsons. Thank you very much.
Yeah, I don't see anything as subtly softer. This is about working together to go after the massive opportunity here in one of the most developed e-commerce markets in the world, with one of the most important businesses in the country. As you know, William asked just before, because of Reimagined, you should expect that our take rate is slightly higher because we're offering the client facilities that are significantly more productive. But because they are significantly more productive, their economics also benefit. Reimagined also brings other benefits like smaller sites and some kind of lower building specs as well that are on the client side in terms of savings. Similar economics pre-Reimagined. Some extra take from Reimagined is how you should look at it.
In terms of, I was actually with Kroger at the time the deal was rumored on the Thursday. You know, obviously the deal is subject to regulatory approvals, but we see it as extremely positive. That's the indications that we've had from our partners in the U.S.
Okay. I guess that's as clear as it can be at this stage. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Andrew.
We're now moving on to Sreedhar Mahamkali of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Tim. A couple of questions, maybe three actually, hopefully quick ones. You talked about GBP 9.5 billion revenue for Lotte Group. How much of that is grocery? That's the first one. Secondly, where is online penetration now in the country, and what is it currently for Lotte? And then thirdly, really just can give us an idea how it is being fulfilled right now. Thanks.
Sure. The corporation is quite a complex structure. I think Lotte Shopping's revenue is something like GBP 9.5 billion. Lotte Shopping is not the only part of Lotte Group that's selling groceries. I think that if you want to kind of do a bit of work on Lotte and its size, I would suggest either talking to them or looking at their publicly available information, 'cause I don't wanna get it.
Sure.
Get it incorrect. Even Lotte Shopping, some of that is revenue, it's not transaction value, 'cause a lot of Lotte Shopping's kind of the business going through the stores is actually not put through their accounts because of the way that their commercial agreements work. It, it's the number two player in retail and the number two player in grocery in the market. In terms of e-commerce, its market share is estimated to be about 5% at the moment. But the overall market here, whilst it has quite large numbers, includes a lot of, I think, packaged grocery that's just sold as individual items and stuff by general commerce players. It's not quite comparable to certain other markets.
Again, I would look at it more independently, but I think that we and Lotte agree and share in a vision that there is a significant opportunity for Lotte to take the number one market share in this space.
Maybe just one last one. You talked about deals quite complex and a lot of due diligence and taking time to conclude. How long has this taken? Just to give us an idea, the kind of timelines that you're working with and things like that.
I think it's a difficult question to answer because Lotte is one of, you know, a significant number of global grocers who we've known for an extended period of time. You know, from what starting point? From the starting point when they decided more recently and, you know, visited the UK by engaging in, you know, led negotiations and more specific detailed due diligence or, you know. It's probably one year that it's been more intense in terms of working with them. I've met with them, you know, in the past over a large number of years, and there are dozens and dozens of grocers that I could fit in that camp.
Sometimes it just takes a moment for the focus and then, you know, then it takes an extended period of time and visits going both directions and interruptions to that to do with COVID and just for the time to be right and, you know, the time is right now. The opportunity is here. Both companies are very excited about it. We have a lot of these activities going on in the background that you're probably all blissfully unaware of.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. From Citi, we have Nick Coulter with our next question. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Congratulations. Three if I may. I'll go one by one, if that's okay. Firstly, on the CFCs, will they cater for non-food as well as grocery, or is that a longer term consideration or an option within the deal structure? Thank you.
They could do, 'cause as you know, they've got great range capabilities. It's not part of the kind of exclusivity arrangements in specifically. You know, they could decide to put non-food through them. I think it's something that we'll look at as we go forward. They may not focus just on grocery.
Okay. Thank you. Can I press a little bit on the funding? What sort of rough quantum of net cash flows should we think about for 2024, 2025, as you start to roll this out? Obviously, cognizant that you have a cash flow seminar coming up. Thank you.
As we said before, a warehouse of this size, the net cash outflow is in the low double-digit GBP millions for us in the 12 months before it goes live. Well, I think the next seminar that Stephen gonna host with you will get into slightly more detail to help you do better modeling, but I don't think today's the time for me to do that.
Okay. This is within-
You know, Sorry, Nick. When we did the last session, we talked about a number of warehouses. That number of warehouses included some estimates of a number of new warehouses for new clients, of which this is within. This is not an additional amount of new warehouses to what we anticipated we were doing. We just didn't know exactly who we would do those new warehouses with, and we still intend to do more with others that we haven't yet told you about.
Okay. These are slightly smaller. Are they around five mods per CFC?
Very slightly smaller than you know we've built some at 2-3. Well, we built some at four. We built some at six. We built quite a few at seven. We built some at eight, and we built some bigger than that. They're slightly smaller than the average that we've built in North America, for example, yes. Only slightly. Again, as our partners go out there and look for sites, you know, maybe no one can be sure at this stage that they will all turn out to be all at that size. Some might be larger, and some might be smaller. It all depends on the availability of land, and obviously, this is the most dense.
I think the most dense population of this size, you know, in the developed world. Site is, you know, obviously a challenge. If, you know, if they find one that's a good four or find one that's a good six, I'm sure they'll be very interested in them. That's the notional size, yes.
Okay, great. Thank you. I've got a slightly dodgy line on my end, but thank you very much indeed.
That's all right. Thanks, Nick.
We're now moving on to Simon Bowler of Numis. Please go ahead.
Morning, Tim. Three, if it would be okay. First one being, appreciate it's come some work for us to do around this as well, but just wondering if it'd be possible for you to kinda share your perspective on kind of what they do in e-commerce at the moment. What are the solutions they may have trialed before coming to the decision to partner with yourself. Secondly, the last two are very quick ones. Secondly, can you just confirm if they committed to a CFC number or a module number? Is it kinda six CFCs or 30 modules when you mention the kinda exclusivity part of it?
Finally, has there been a decision made in terms of whether or not they'll utilize the Ocado Flex element of Ocado Reimagined, or are you expecting to develop the webshop element for them as well?
In terms of what have they done historically, they've got fulfillment centers including with automation in them from similar generations. While they're much newer, they're similar types of automation as we have in Hatfield and Dordon, so kind of conveyors and shuttles, that type of automation. They obviously have in-store fulfillment. They also have a smart store that has conveyors and systems inside a supermarket. They have also had some other automated sites that they have shut down as well, they built in the last few years with some automation that we're all rather familiar with. I think they're very clear that our automation in Ocado OSP is a new generation and significantly ahead of anything else in the market.
Equally critically, as one of them laid out for us last night, it's the end-to-end solution that we bring that is unmatched by anybody anywhere. Your other question is on Flex.
Yep. Thanks.
I think we'll wait and see. I mean, You know, they're taking the end-to-end solution, whether they choose to kind of, at the very front end, have a bit more autonomy and use Flex or whether they choose to take the front end that we provide with it. We'll see. It's not a big deal whether it's Flex or not Flex on the front end. They're taking the end to end, and it's a critical part of why they wanted to go this direction.
Okay, great. Just the last one very quick, just in terms of the 6 CFCs versus the 30 modules.
Well, that you know, it's kind of the same thing because they clearly, you know, they've laid out their target. They've stated today 6 and 30, and that. If it turned out to be 5 and 30, if you see what I mean, we're not gonna be saying that they haven't fulfilled their obligation. If it turned out to be four, you know, seven warehouses and 30. It doesn't really matter, if you see what I mean. It's the amount of capacity and I'm indifferent to them doing it in fours, fives, sixes, sevens, eights, et cetera.
I know what they think is the right currently in the current view of the optimum size for this particular market with the geography and the densities and the modalities that they want to offer and stuff like that. That's kinda currently the plan.
Great. Thanks, Tim.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rob Joyce of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks, Tim, for taking the questions. Just a couple. Firstly, on the online market in Korea, I just wonder if you could give us an idea of what the remaining 95% of that market looks like in terms of who's serving it. Is it a lot of online specialists? And what sort of technology or not is being used to serve the rest of the market? And then the second one is just on the timeline to go live. I think first site in 2025 and then six planned by 2028. Just trying to understand what that means. Is that six live CFCs?
By 2028? Thank you.
Rob, hi. So for your first question, obviously there are other incumbent grocers, like SSG, E-Mart, and then there are plus there's, you know, the old Tesco business, Homeplus. There are other incumbents. There's the pure plays, which is Coupang and Market Kurly. There is quite a lot of marketplace activity out here as well that sells items that get included in what the overall grocery market includes. In terms of automation, I think there's quite a lot in play over here. I think people have tried a lot, including, as I mentioned before, our new partners have their businesses have tried quite a lot.
They see the very obvious benefits of our solution driving significantly better economics as well as a better customer proposition. The fact that it is all part of a single end-to-end platform is something of immense value to them.
Thank you. Just in terms of that sort of, timeline.
Oh, sorry, in terms of timeline. We would expect all those sites to be started at that point. I wouldn't have expected that they would all be delivered by that point because it's just a timing piece around finding and starting sites in terms of, you know, property, real estate. We would expect the sites to start in that timeframe.
Thanks very much.
Thank you. We now move on to Luke Holbrook of Morgan Stanley with our next question. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking the time to answer the questions. My first question was just on whether they'd actually secured any sites for maybe the 2025 start, just on following on from that last point. The second one was just on the, just a quick Google shows that maybe the online sales here, they have enough capacity for maybe three CFCs at this point in time. Is that right? Would you be just factoring in their online sales growing to cater for the full six at this stage? Thank you.
Luke, I think, you know, their property pipeline isn't one for me to discuss. They're in turn, you know, I think that's for them and their property teams. Obviously, they also are a large property player here in the local market. In fact, I went out on deliveries yesterday and went into apartment buildings that were also Lotte. In terms of kind of scale of demand, I mean, you know, this, the greater Seoul area alone is, you know, around 20-odd million people. There's kind of 50-odd million people in the country and incredibly dense urban areas.
Just looking out the window from the amazing Lotte World Tower we're sitting in at the moment, it is, well, it's something I've never seen before in terms of density of people around these potential sites. I think there's plenty of, and they believe there's plenty of potential to grow, not just the numbers we've announced today, but beyond that in the future.
Okay. I understood that three CFC number that I said was broadly accurate catering to their online sales today.
I think their point is they're really going after a new service here to significantly expand their business.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thank you. We now take a follow-up from Andrew Gwynn of BNPP Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, sorry. Very, very quickly. Just wanted to confirm obviously a month before the end of the year, which is everything's broadly in line with where you've guided previously. Thank you very much.
I mean, this isn't a guidance call, so I don't know, Stephen, if you want to say anything, but I think if we had to move guidance, we would have moved guidance. But I don't know if Stephen wants to say anything else.
Yeah. Tim, that's the answer I would have given. The fact that we're not saying on it, yes, you can assume that guidance remains unchanged.
No news is good news. Thank you very much, and congratulations again. Over.
Thank you.
Thank you. At this stage, we have no further questions in the queue.
In which case, thank you everyone for joining us on short notice this morning. We're obviously very excited to be working with the Lotte Group, but we appreciate your time this morning.