Europe's biggest food delivery firm Just Eat Takeaway.com is set to be acquired by tech investor Prosus for €4.1bn, in one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of Dutch tech.
Prosus — the investment arm of South African tech firm Naspers — has agreed to buy Just Eat Takeaway's shares at €20.30 each in an all-cash offer. That's a 22% premium over the delivery app's recent three-month high but only a fifth of its pandemic-era peak of above €100 per share. Following the announcement, Just Eat Takeaway's shares climbed 53% on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange this morning.
Just Eat Takeaway was formed in 2020 through the merger of UK-based Just Eat and Dutch company Takeaway.com. The €7.4bn deal made the Amsterdam-based company — which has been both a speaker and partner at TNW Conference — one of the world's largest food delivery platforms.
However, it's been a turbulent few years for Just Eat Takeaway since then, amid cooling demand and tough competition from rivals. The company also had a few missteps, most notably its botched takeover of US delivery app Grubhub. Just Eat Takeaway acquired Grubhub for $7.3bn in 2021 only to sell it off for $650mn just three years later.
For Prosus, the deal is an opportunity to turn Just Eat Takeaway into a “European tech champion,” said its CEO, Fabricio Bloisi.
The Prosus plan for Just Eat Takeaway
Prosus already owns iFood, Latin America's largest food delivery platform. The firm also has stakes in Germany's Delivery Hero, Chinese shopping platform Meituan, and Swiggy, a grocery delivery app in India.
Prosus has wanted to add Just Eat Takeaway to its delivery empire for years. The South African-owned firm tried to hijack the merger of Just Eat and Takeaway.com in 2019 with a £5.1bn (€6.1bn) bid.
Just Eat Takeaway announced the deal today alongside its annual results, reporting a 35% jump in pre-tax profits for 2024, reaching €460mn. Jitse Groen, the company's CEO, said it was “now a faster growing, more profitable, and predominantly European-based business.”
Groen hopes that Prosus' expertise in the delivery sector and AI technology will bring further profits for Just Eat Takeaway.
“Prosus fully supports our strategic plans, and its extensive resources will help to further accelerate our investments and growth across food, groceries, fintech and other adjacencies,” said Groen.
Just Eat Takeaway confirmed that its current leadership would remain in place under the agreement, which is still subject to shareholder approval.
If the deal is approved by shareholders and the relevant authorities, it will be one of the largest acquisitions of a Dutch tech company in history.
Other notable buyouts in the country include Warburg Pincus and Apax Partners' €5.1bn acquisition of T-Mobile Netherlands in 2021 and Siemens' €628mn purchase of Rotterdam-based software startup Mendix in 2018. US chip maker Qualcomm's $44bn attempt to acquire its Dutch rival NXP in 2018 would've been by far the largest buy, but it fell through after failing to win approval from Chinese regulators.