JSE-listed tech giant seals R5.2 billion deal with Uber

Uber is raising its holding in Germany’s Delivery Hero, buying a stake from its European rival’s biggest shareholder for €270 million (R5.2 billion). 

The ride-hailing company will purchase 4.5% from Prosus NV, the companies said Friday. The deal will bring its total stake in Delivery Hero to 7%, according to an Uber spokesperson.

Prosus is selling the shares at €20 apiece, a premium of about 22% of the one-month volume-weighted average price of Delivery Hero shares as of Thursday.

Delivery Hero climbed as much as 6.4% in Frankfurt on the news. Uber shares were little changed in premarket trading in New York.

The Financial Times first reported Uber’s increased stake. 

The deal comes amid rapid consolidation in online food delivery, an industry that has struggled to return to its pandemic-era heights. Prosus is reducing its 26.3% Delivery Hero stake to meet European antitrust requirements after the Dutch investment firm bought Just Eat Takeaway.com in a $4.3 billion deal.

Prosus has also weighed the sale of a roughly 10% stake in Delivery Hero to Aspex Management, the number two shareholder that has threatened to replace the delivery company’s management, Bloomberg News reported earlier.

Delivery Hero has moved to cut costs and sell assets as its shares have steadily declined.

“Uber’s increased position is a meaningful endorsement of our platform,” Delivery Hero Chief Executive Officer Niklas Östberg said in an emailed statement.  

The transaction will reduce Prosus’s shareholding to 21.8% from 26.3%.