Eat or be eaten
In July, Cat Rock, a US fund run by Alex Captain, which holds a 4.7pc stake in Just Eat, made the case for Just Eat to explore strategic options, including a sale or merger to companies such as US food delivery giant Doordash, Germany’s Delivery Hero, China’s Meituan or Uber Eats.
Just Eat investors are also keen for the company to sell off its Brazilian iFood business to Prosus, the €100bn Naspers spin-off. Just Eat’s stake could be valued in excess of £2bn. A Prosus spokesperson said it remained interested in doing a deal for the right price.
At Deliveroo, Shu, who is still known to log onto its app himself to courier takeaways, has played down the prospect of a merger. Thanks to his dual class shares, he holds sway over any takeover decision for the next three years.
Niklas Oestberg, Delivery Hero’s boss, agreed there was no plan for a broader approach “at this point in time”, but was more cryptic on a call on Thursday.
He said: “Is there no strategic intention? That might be true, but we always have some logic when we make these types of…
