Berlin-based online food delivery company Delivery Hero is selling its German operations to the Dutch competitor Takeaway.com for €930 million. The deal includes Lieferheld, Pizza.de, and foodora, a food delivery business that Delivery Hero acquired from Rocket Internet in 2015. Takeaway.com will pay €508 million in cash and the rest in shares, which would result in Delivery Hero holding an 18 percent stake in it. Takeaway.com said that it has committed debt financing of €680 million in place to cover the cash part of the transaction.
The deal ends a long history of competition between the two food delivery platforms on the German market. Takeaway's CEO and founder Jitse Groen, who previously repeatedly talked about the inevitable consolidation on the food delivery market, said that the deal “allows Takeaway.com to operate on a significantly larger scale which is essential in building a profitable online food delivery business.”
“Although the transaction almost doubles Takeaway.com's orders in Germany, there is still ample growth ahead, given that penetration of online food delivery in Germany is amongst the lowest in Europe,” he added.
Germany is not the first market Delivery Hero is leaving this year. Back in August, the company announced that it'd stop working in Australia, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, where it was operating under the foodora brand. Earlier, it also departed from Brazil and Switzerland.
Shares in both Takeaway.com and Delivery Hero surged in the wake of the announcement by 38 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
Image credit: Kai Pilger on Unsplash
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