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Just Eat Takeaway.com has announced this morning it has finally completed the US$7.3bn (£5.75bn) deal to acquire Grubhub US food delivery rival Grubhub.
The all share transaction, which was agreed in June 2020, represents Just Eat Takeaway.com’s entry into online food delivery in the United States.
As a result of the deal, the enlarged group is now built around “four of the world’s most attractive markets in online food delivery”, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany.
The deal will increase the enlarged group’s ability to deploy capital and resources to strengthen its competitive positions in all markets, it said.
Jitse Groen, CEO and founder of Just Eat Takeaway.com: “I have always believed that the combination of Takeaway.com, Just Eat and Grubhub is a winning combination. The new company is the market leader in Europe, Canada and Australia, with very strong positions in the most important markets in the United States. It is humbling to run such a company after our start in Holland more than twenty years ago.”
Matt Maloney, founder of Grubhub, added: “I couldn’t be more excited to enter this next chapter of Grubhub’s story with the global leadership and experience of the Just Eat Takeaway team. Our companies share an unwavering focus on supporting restaurants and our communities around the world. Together we will continue to innovate and break new ground in our industry as we each have separately for the past 20 years.”
As a result of the transaction, new Just Eat Takeaway.com shares have now been issued for the benefit of Grubhub stockholders representing approximately 30% of the company’s issued share capital.
In addition, Grubhub requested that the New York Stock Exchange delist Grubhub’s common stock, and, as a result, trading of the Grubhub common stock was suspended following the close of trading on 14 June 2021.
The new Just Eat Takeaway.com ADSs are expected to begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GRUB on 15 June 2021.
The admission of 62,798,005 New Just Eat Takeaway.com Shares to the premium listing segment of the UK Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities took place at 8am this morning.
It is expected that Matt Maloney’s appointment to the Just Eat Takeaway.com management board, and the appointments of Lloyd Frink and David Fisher to the Just Eat Takeaway.com supervisory board, will become effective shortly after completion.
The shares are up 1.4% this morning to 6,452p.
Morning update
AIM-listed drinks group Distil has announced the appointment of Michael Keiller as an independent non-executive director with effect from 1 July 2021.
Keiller began his career as a chartered accountant and went on to hold senior finance and business change roles at Guinness, United Distillers Europe and Diageo in its early development stage.
Continuing this experience of business transformation, Mike joined Suntory owned Morrison Bowmore Distillers as CEO in 2000, converting the business from bulk whisky supplier to a strongly profitable consumer brand marketing-led business. He retired from full time management in 2014 after assisting Suntory with the integration of their acquisition of Beam.
Following this, from 2015 to 2018, he was non-executive director of The Last Drop Distillers, which was sold to The Sazerac Corporation in 2017.
Don Goulding, executive chairman of Distil, commented: “I am delighted to welcome Mike to the board as we seek to further strengthen our team and take Distil into the next phase of development particularly in the area of premium malt whisky.
“His breadth of industry experience in Scotland, the UK and internationally, together with a proven track record of driving transformational growth will bring significant value to the business.”
On the markets this morning, the FTSE 100 is up another 0.4% to 7,175.6pts.
Early risers include Associated British Foods, up 3.9% to 2,381p, SSP Group, up 3.2% to 326.2p and Finsbury Food Group, up 2.7% to 95p.
Fallers so far today include McColl’s Retail Group, down 2.1% to 36.3p, Hotel Chocolat, down 1.8% to 368.2p and Naked Wines, down 1.5% to 680p.
Yesterday in the City
The FTSE 100 started the day edging up 0.2% to 7,146.6pts.
Risers included SSP Group, up 3.5% to 316.1p, Carr’s Group, up 2.8% to 146p, Glanbia, up 2.5% to €14.35, Finsbury Food Group, up 1.6% to 94p, B&M European Value Reatil, up 1% to 550p and McColl’s Retail Group, up 1% to 37.1p.
The day’s fallers included Naked Wines, down 3.5% to 690 following its annual results on Friday, Associated British Foods, down 2.8% to 2,292p, FeverTree, down 2% to 2,557, Just Eat Takeaway.com, down 2% to 6,361p and THG, down 2% to 603p.
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