AO World restarts Brexit stockpiling

The boss of AO World berated Brexit on Tuesday as he said he would have to start stockpiling fridges and washing machines again.

Founder John Roberts, who returned to the helm of the white goods seller as chief executive in January after a two-year hiatus, said: “[Stockpiling] was a huge process and there was a lot of cost to manage that. [March] became a non-event. We will repeat the process.”

He added that AO’s efforts had been “a lot of hassle” and he had started unwinding the stockpiling — only to begin to build it again as Britain is now not expected to leave the EU until at least Halloween. The online retailer has already splashed out £15 million on extra goods in the event of a disorderly Brexit in March.

Sales rose 13% to £902 million for the year to March 31, but AO made an underlying loss of £400,000, an improvement on the £3.4 million loss it made last year. The business was hit again by difficulties in Europe, which is heavily loss-making, as well as one-off costs after management changes.

Roberts insisted that reviving the fortunes of its European business was “our single number one priority” and he hoped it would be profitable before 2021. He added there was “pressure internally to achieve that”.

He will update the City on his strategy in November. The shares dropped 3.8p, or 3.4%, to 106p.