Grubhub CEO Contends Richer Offer Won Out

Grubhub CEO and Founder Matt Maloney said on Thursday (June 11) that it was a richer offer that drove the restaurant ordering and delivery service into the arms of European giant Just Eat Takeaway, which has agreed to pay $7.3 billion for the company.

In an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Maloney indicated that Uber Technologies, which had been in talks with Grubhub on a potential deal, came up short in its offer compared to what the Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway offered.

While Just Eat Takeaway has agreed to pay $75.15 a share for Grubhub, Uber’s offer, by contrast, was in the mid-$60s per share, Maloney said.

“The board had a very easy decision to make,” Maloney said, contending that Just Eat Takeaway presented a “much higher offer with much more deal certainty that brought us significant financial strength and flexibility to continue doing what we are doing now.”

Still, Maloney was pressed on his insistence that federal concerns over the impact to competition in the food delivery sector in the U.S. over a potential Uber/Grubhub merger did not play a part in Grubhub’s ultimate decision to go with another partner.

“What I am willing to say is the offer was dramatically different,” Maloney said. “It was a much higher offer.”

Shares of Grubhub rose 5 percent to $62 a share on Thursday (June 11), a day after the deal was announced.

Still, leading Democratic senators had raised concerns over a potential Uber-Grubhub deal. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Patrick Leahy of Vermont vowed last month to push for an antitrust review by the federal government if the deal went through.

Meanwhile, Just Eat Takeaway Chief Executive Officer Jitse Groen fielded questions from analysts on a Thursday (June 11) call about the timing of the deal, which comes on the heels of a multibillion-dollar acquisition in Europe by Takeaway of Just Eat.