Just Eat Takeaway, a major European food delivery and ordering company, has announced that Prosus would purchase its investment in Brazil’s iFood for up to €1.8 billion ($1.8 billion).
The original agreement will be for €1.5 billion in cash, plus an additional €300 million contingent upon how well iFood performs over the next 12 months.
Early trading on the Dutch Euronext Amsterdam stock market saw a 25% increase in Just Eat Takeaway’s shares to more than €21 on news of the impending transaction.
Multiple equity
Since its founding in 2011, iFood has garnered about $600 million in capital; Just Eat Takeaway has invested across three different fundraising rounds, acquiring around 33% of the company. The company primarily operates in Brazil and Colombia. The remaining shares were controlled by Prosus, a Dutch international conglomerate that is a part of Naspers, and its Brazilian subsidiary Movile; as a consequence of this deal, Prospus and Movile would hold all of iFood.
The sell-off occurs at a difficult time for Just Eat Takeaway, which was formed in 2020 as a consequence of a $7.6 billion merger between the U.K.’s Just East and Dutch competitor Takeaway.com. Just Eat Takeaway claimed that its iFood stock worth has climbed five-fold throughout the course of the joint venture.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that Only Eat Takeaway was cutting down in France, which result in 390 job losses as its value would fell more than 80% in just 10 months. As part of a larger effort to achieve “sustainable, profitable growth,” Just Eat Takeaway disclosed it was aiming to unload Grubhub less than a year after its $7.3 billion Grubhub purchase finally concluded.
The business said today that it intends to enhance its balance sheet with the money from iFood while also making payments on approaching debt maturities. It also said that it “continues to aggressively investigate” selling Grubhub in part or in whole.
Just Eat Takeaway said in a statement that it is “remaining focused on enhancing its profitability and on a rigorous deployment of cash.”
Just Eat Takeaway said that it anticipates the deal to be completed by the end of 2022, even though the sale is still pending shareholder approval at an upcoming Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM).
