Shares in Ocado have been boosted by reports that the online grocer is in talks with Marks & Spencer to launch a £1 billion food delivery service.

The stock gained as much as 6.7%, surpassing 1,000p in early trading today.

Meanwhile, M&S hit a high of 297.6p, up 2.6%.

It came on the back of reports that M&S would buy the Waitrose part of the Ocado business, including distribution centres and vans, when the existing contract ends next year.

According to the Mail on Sunday, top executives have held discussions over the past few weeks regarding the proposal.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the deal would have positive potential outcomes for both parties.

"Such a move would be another tick in the box for Ocado, which is adding relationships with supermarkets in several parts of the world. Its core focus is now selling technology expertise to the food retail sector rather than running physical delivery operations," he said.

"For Marks & Spencer, having a stronger delivery network would give it a new way in which to try and boost earnings. There is no guarantee this would be the magic solution to fix its declining profits but it would put the business on a more level pegging with some of its key competitors."

But Bruno Monteyne, analyst at Bernstein, said it seemed "unlikely" that M&S would be a replacement for Waitrose given the latter's buying volumes on branded products.

"M&S price points are also materially higher than the Waitrose private label ranges," he added.

But he said M&S could help to fill capacity at Ocado's Erith fulfillment centre or could even be a launch partner for the technology business's Amazon Prime Now-style immediacy-grocery concept.

The Herald:

Wood Group has sold stakes in several joint ventures for around 28 million US dollars (£21.3 million) as part of its ongoing asset disposal programme.

The energy services company said the disposals include a 25% stake in RMS A13 Holdings, a UK roadway project, a 52% share in Power Machinery, a China-based manufacturing facility, and a 42% holding in Centro Energia Teverola and Ferrara, two Italy-based gas power plants.

The FTSE 100-listed company also recently completed a sale of a 50% stake in the Voreas wind farm joint venture in Italy, with proceeds of around 26 million dollars (£19.7 million) received last month.

The sales are part of Wood Group's strategy to sell non-core assets in order to reduce its debt with the programme on course to generate over 200 million dollars (£152 million) for the firm.

The four joint ventures were expected to make 8 million dollars (£6 million) for the group in 2019 and the company said its holding in RMS A13 carried with it "significant" capital commitments and an ongoing cost of around 5 million dollars (£3.8 million).

Chief executive David Kemp said: "Together, these transactions generate cash proceeds of around 54 million dollars and make a good contribution to our non-core asset disposal programme, which is a key element of our deleveraging plan."

Shares in Utilitywise tumbled after the company said it has put itself up for sale and needs to raise £10 million in equity.

The energy consultancy said it is reviewing its options, including selling certain parts or all of the group, following a number of headwinds in its enterprise division. Shares dropped 47% to 3p on the news.

The firm said that in the past two years it has experienced a number of "significant and unexpected challenges and legacy issues" in its enterprise division that has hit its financial performance.

These included the repayment of commission to an energy supplier due to poor operational controls, weaknesses in industry processes relating to early-termination of customer contracts and the introduction of lower caps from energy suppliers on the amount of commission that third-party intermediaries such as Utilitywise can charge customers.

Utilitywise said it needs about £10 million to execute its new strategy that focuses on the group's corporate division and to enter the micro, small and medium enterprise (SME) market, which it expects will result in profitable growth and significant cash flow in the medium term.