Just Eat To Merge With Takeaway.com In £8bn Deal
The combination creates one of the biggest players in the online food delivery market, with operations in Europe, Israel and Vietnam
London-based online food delivery firm Just Eat on Monday agreed to a merger with Amsterdam’s Takeaway.com in an all-share deal that values the combined group at about £8.2 billion ($10.1bn), making it one of the sector’s largest players.
Takeaway.com is to acquire Just Eat at 731p per share, valuing the British firm at £5bn.
The deal is to create a combined company that had 360 million orders worth 7.3bn euros (£6.6bn) last year, and maintains strong positions in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.
Just Eat shares rose 25 percent to 794.28p after the deal was announced. The companies had said over the weekend that they were in talks.
Merger
Just Eat shareholders are to own 52.2 percent of the combined group, which is to be headquartered in Amsterdam and listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a “significant part of its operations” in the UK.
The company is to be led by Takeaway.com’s Jitse Groen as chief executive, with Just Eat chairman Mike Evans as its chairman and the Takeaway.com chairman Adriaan Nühn as vice-chairman.
Groen has said the UK is one of the best three markets in Europe for online food delivery, along with the Netherlands and Poland.
Takeaway.com, founded in 2000, operates in 10 European countries as well as Israel and Vietnam, but not in the UK, with the two companies having little overlap apart from in Switzerland.
The lack of overlap means that the two companies will benefit mainly from consolidating their technology and administrative costs, according to analysts Investec.
Consolidation
“This is presumably not insignificant, but less attractive than if they overlapped,” Investec said in a research note.
Just Eat had been under pressure from activist shareholder Cat Rock Capital to merge with Takeaway.com.
The online food delivery market has been consolidating quickly, with Just Eat buying UK firm HungryHouse in January 2018 and Takeaway.com snapping up Delivery Hero’s German food delivery business in December.
The business requires large investments in delivery infrastructure, with both companies deriving their profits from deals with restaurants.
