British businesses will suffer if the UK decides to leave the EU, Ocado chairman and former Marks & Spencer CEO Sir Stuart Rose has claimed.
Speaking yesterday (Tuesday January 3) at a panel debate at the MetaPack Delivery Conference in central London, Rose said that leaving the UK would be “fundamentally” bad for the country, and that he would be unhappy if such a decision was made, essentialretail.com reports.
Rose’s comments came on the same day that Ocado revealed its first annual pre-tax profits since the company was founded in April 2000. Preliminary results for the 12 months to November 30 2014 showed gross retail sales had grown 15.3 per cent year on year to £972.4 million.
Ocado began working with supermarket Morrisons in 2013, taking care of its ecommerce division, and the impact of the partnership is evident in its success. Rose indicated that Ocado, which also delivers goods for Waitrose, would look to partner up with international companies in a similar way, bbc.co.uk notes.
“I believe in free and open markets,” he explained. “You can’t ignore the fact that we now live in this global economy. If you look at the big players in this global economy you’ve got America, you’ve got the east and you’ve got now in Europe a quarter of a billion people that have an immense buying power […] and we’ve got to harness that energy.”
Author: Jack Stanton