“Uber Technologies reached out with an indicative proposal of €33 per share in respect of a potential takeover offer to all shareholders,” the company said in a news release Saturday (May 23), adding that it “remains fully focused on executing its strategic review process. Further updates will be provided as required or appropriate.”
Delivery Hero issued the statement following a report from the Financial Times (FT) that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had flown this week to meet with Delivery Hero supervisory board chair Kristin Skogen Lund on a $11 billion offer to acquire the company.
Sources told FT that Uber rival DoorDash has also expressed interest in acquiring Delivery Hero’s Middle Eastern unit, and has also explored a full takeover. The report added that Uber recently revealed it owns a 19.5% stake in Delivery Hero and another 5.6% in derivatives.
DoorDash’s and Uber’s interest comes amid a period of increasing consolidation in the food delivery space. Just Eat Takeaway, former owner of Grubhub, was sold last year to tech investor Prosus for $4.3 billion. And DoorDash last year acquired Deliveroo, a U.K.-based delivery service that operates throughout parts of Europe and the Middle East, as well as Singapore.
As covered here earlier this year, DoorDash management has since said that this acquisition is helping it pivot from a platform “best known for restaurant orders” to “a technology and infrastructure partner to merchants.”
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More recently, PYMNTS examined the diverging paths taken by Uber and rival Lyft, the former increasingly resembling “a sprawling mobility and logistics infrastructure platform” and the latter “positioning itself as a more focused transportation company built around customer experience, premium services and strategic partnerships.”
During an earnings call, Khosrowshahi depicted the company’s strategy as expanding “everyday utility” across travel, delivery, commerce and mobility. Uber reported 21% growth year over year in gross bookings growth, increasing mobility growth and a delivery business increasingly fueled by grocery and retail orders.
“Uber no longer wants to own a single transportation moment; it wants to orchestrate the entire journey around it,” PYMNTS wrote.
“That includes airport rides, hotel reservations, restaurant delivery, retail shopping and eventually autonomous fleets. The company says three-quarters of Uber rides already involve AI predicting where a customer wants to go before the destination is entered.”
