Online retailer stands on the brink of delivering

That’s a shame, because he faces a wave of scepticism over the float’s timing and the value it will put on his (loss-making) business. How can he rebut it? By just pointing to the latest half-year figures. “Gross sales up 30%, revenue up 29%, ebitda [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] up 181%, operating loss reduced by 63% . . .”

Does he expect the float to value his business at £1 billion, as many insist? Its sales are not even half that. Can’t say, he replies. Wait for the prospectus in a fortnight.

And the timing of the float for this summer? Ocado needs the money to expand, he says, and can’t sit around. The business, which has an exclusive deal to deliver Waitrose products to more than 1.6m customers, operates from a vast centralised warehouse in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, and will soon have to build a second, probably in the Midlands. The competition with established retailers is relentless. “If we wait, we can’t do it the way we want.”

And some of the shareholders need to cash in. The John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose, holds a 25% stake. It was transferred to its pension fund two years ago — a move that inevitably brought a share listing closer, as the fund needs to sell much of that to spread the risk. Likewise UBS, another early backer, wants to offload part of its 10% stake.

“I don’t know how much they want to sell but those are the two I expect to reduce their stakes in meaningful ways.”

Ocado has about 180 other investors, ranging from Jorn Rausing, the Tetrapak billionaire, to Procter & Gamble, the consumer goods giant.

Steiner says he expects existing backers to sell up to £250m-worth of shares. He’ll sell “up to” a tenth of his own holding of about 9%. The company also hopes to raise £200m with new shares. Which implies he must know a value?

He runs a hand over his cropped, grey hair then composes himself. “Yeah, yeah, you are absolutely right.”

Short, shy and determined, Steiner is a smart operator, used to slogging through the detail, slyly funny about his sector. Still only 40 — he set up Ocado when he was just 30 — he seems unflappable, but like any entrepreneur, he can be prickly when confronted with sceptics.

Sir Terry Leahy made it plain he thought Ocado would never make any money That’s because Ocado’s decade of struggle has left its marks. Steiner, a former bond trader, set up the firm with two friends from Goldman Sachs, Jonathan Faiman and Jason Gissing.

Their banking background antagonised many from the start. What did they know about retail? Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, made it plain he thought Ocado would never make any money.

Yet the business is still standing, and if you believe its fans, going from strength to strength, already taking 14% of the online grocery market.

Its affluent customers, half of them inside the M25, love Ocado’s emphasis on service. Its prospects for growth — both geographically and into other product areas such as homeware — are good.

Its relationship with Waitrose, recently renewed in a 10-year exclusive deal, is firm. Profit can’t be far away. Even so, how many share listings have prospered recently? Some have been pulled. Others have left shareholders with a loss. How desperate is Ocado to list now?

“Look,” says Steiner, sitting in the offices of Ocado’s London PR, “there have been difficult floats but a number of them involved private equity firms taking money off the table, and there is now a suspicion of that. We’re different. We want to raise capital to expand the business.”

So this is not about the three founders baling out? Faiman has already moved abroad. Gissing recently moved sideways, “championing all things people-related” at Ocado. It looks like the Three Musketeers are slowly exiting stage left.

No, they’re not, says Steiner. “Let’s be clear, there is no baling out. The prospectus will reveal all about share sales.” And don’t forget, he adds, this is also about customers and staff. Anyone who has ordered more than £300 of groceries from Ocado this year can apply to buy shares.

“It’s not to help us get the float away, that’s why we’ve asked customers not to respond yet, it’s because without them we wouldn’t be here, they’ve chosen to shop at a new brand, and enabled us to grow.”

For employees, it’s retention and motivation. “All 4,300 of our staff have stock options. It’s a big thing. Ask yourself, if more BA cabin crew were shareholders, would there be so much acrimony with management?”

Steiner knew what it took to build a business long before he started Ocado. His grandfather founded Steiner Leisure, a London beauty chain, now listed in America, where it runs outlets on cruise ships. The business was headed by his father and is currently chaired by his uncle. It partly inspired his decision to leave Goldman Sachs and set up Ocado.

“But did I know how hard it would be? No, I absolutely didn’t. It’s rewarding, though, to have built a brand and created thousands of jobs at a time when we need to create jobs in this country.”

Some of Ocado’s critics forget that, he adds. His firm may be e-commerce but it’s also a people business.

“We’re lucky we’ve had backers who believed in us but we’ve never had a huge cushion of cash. What we’ve had we’ve tried to spend on the areas that would benefit the customer most.”

Would others have respected Ocado more if the three founders hadn’t come from Goldman Sachs? He nods. “Yeah, people don’t say ‘Tim Steiner, the Manchester University student trying to run a grocery business’.”

On the other hand, he says, he learnt so much at Goldman, particularly about the ability to make quick decisions without over-analysing. That knack of jumping in has proved invaluable, he says, and continues to be Ocado’s driving force.

He cites the snow tyres ordered last winter for its fleet of 700 vans, when traffic was gridlocked by icy conditions. “We shipped them in from Europe. Others would have run three vans for three years and seen if they felt more mobile. We are the only company with a fleet of vehicles that made that decision. What else do the others need to know?”

That impatience may have fuelled the float, too, though Steiner denies it. The surprise is that he wants to head a publicly- listed company at all. He is far less out-going than most retail bosses and probably more sensitive. He preferred until recently to let Gissing front much of the firm’s communication.

Faiman once told me that Steiner and he “were not outward-facing”, which is why they brought Gissing into the team. “We were risk-takers, but Jason was good at forming relationships.”

Gissing, for his part, describes Steiner as “a genius” but also emails me twice preinterview, asking me to “be nice” to his boss. Protecting his share values? Or his friend? And Steiner can sound sharp. When I quiz him about the analyst who described Ocado as “starts with an O, ends with an O, and is worth zero”, he looks contemptuous. “Who was he? I’d never heard of him until then.”

He’ll need to be smoother post-float. Or maybe someone will just swallow the business before it even gets to the stock market? Steiner puffs his cheeks.

“The management shares don’t equal 51% so we can’t stop it happening, but we wouldn’t support it.”

And with that, he’s off to have his photo taken outside. An electric Ocado delivery van waits by the kerb. “Look what Jason’s cooked up,” he grins, before his normal, thoughtful frown returns.

The life of Tim Steiner

Born: December 9, 1969
School: Haberdashers’ Aske’s, Hertfordshire
University: Manchester
First job: trainee, Goldman Sachs
Status: married, four children
Pay: £350,000 plus bonus. His 9% Ocado stake may be worth £90m post-flotation
Car: grey BMW 7 series
Homes: Highgate, north London, and the Three Valleys, France
Favourite film: Shawshank Redemption
Book: The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Music: Coldplay
Gadget: iPhone 4
Last holiday: Mykonos

Working day
The Ocado chief executive wakes at 7am at his home in Highgate, north London. “First thing I do is check my devices for the overnight figures,” says Tim Steiner. Then he is driven to Ocado’s base in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. “I used to drive myself but it gets a bit dangerous with the phone going all the time.”

Steiner focuses on systems, operation and expansion, frequently overseeing meetings on capital expenditure. “My role is to challenge why people are doing things in a particular way.” He also deals with more than 300 emails a day. He breaks for a sandwich at 2.30 then works on until 7pm, before going home to his family. “I don’t do the retail social scene in the evening.”

Downtime
“I’ve got two preoccupations outside work,” says Tim Steiner. “Spending as much time as possible with my four children and skiing.” He has a chalet in the Three Valleys region of France and will often decamp with his family for a long weekend.

His only vice is an obsession with gadgets. “You name it, I’ve got it, but it’s work too. Other retailers spend Fridays touring their stores, mine are all in my jacket. An Apple shop here, a Google shop there.” He is particularly keen on the iPad. “Wonderful for wandering round the office, better than squinting at a BlackBerry or an iPhone.”