Just Eat sells US business Grubhub for 650m dollars at steep discount

Just Eat has sold its US business Grubhub to the food delivery startup Wonder for 650 million dollars (£502.5 million), more than two years after it announced plans for a sale.

The price tag represents a roughly 6.65 billion dollar (£5.22 billion) discount, after Just Eat bought Grubhub for 7.3 billion dollars (£5.73 billion) in 2020, during the pandemic-fuelled boom in delivery firms.

Just Eat founder Jitse Groen said: “The sale of Grubhub to Wonder will increase the cash generation capabilities of Just Eat Takeaway.com and will accelerate our growth.

“This deal delivers the right home for Grubhub and its employees.”

Grubhub was a shrinking business in a growing market that (Just Eat) couldn’t afford to support

Amsterdam-based Just Eat bought Grubhub in a bid to get access to the US food delivery market, but order numbers have lagged in recent years.

By April 2022, it announced plans to sell the company, amid growth from competitors such as Uber Eats.

Mr Groen said in 2023 that it was “difficult” to strike a deal because of high price demands from investors combined with a weak deal-making market.

After the deal announcement on Wednesday morning, Just Eat shares were up 20%, as investors cheered its success in finally offloading the US business.

About 500 million dollars of the overall deal value will be a transfer of debt, Just Eat said, with Just Eat getting only about £50 million in cash after other costs.

Nonetheless, Sean Kealy, an analyst at Panmure Liberum, said the deal was “unalloyed good news”.

“Grubhub was a shrinking business in a growing market that (Just Eat) couldn’t afford to support. Its absence will free up some cash flow for other purposes,” he wrote in a note on Wednesday.

Wonder was founded in 2018 by former Walmart executive Marc Lore.

Mr Lore said: “Wonder’s acquisition of Grubhub continues our mission to make great food more accessible.

“As we enhance our customer experience with selection, speed and variety, we’re excited to soon offer a curated selection of Grubhub’s restaurant partners directly in the Wonder app, alongside our owned and operated restaurants and meal kits.

“Bringing Wonder and Grubhub together is the next step in our vision to create the super app for meal time, re-envisioning the future of food delivery.”