(Bloomberg) -- Just Eat Takeaway.com NV’s chief executive gave a lighthearted response after JPMorgan Chase & Co. said a food-delivery mega merger could be in the cards.
Analysts at JPMorgan including Marcus Diebel suggested e-commerce investor Prosus NV could create an enlarged firm called JustiFoodHero by acquiring Just Eat and Delivery Hero SE and merging them with its Brazilian online food delivery company, iFood.
Just Eat CEO Jitse Groen wrote on X that “I think we would have to work on the name,” including a laughing emoji while tagging his counterpart at Delivery Hero, Niklas Oestberg. The company’s shares traded little changed.
Prosus, the Amsterdam-listed internet unit of technology investor Naspers Ltd., already owns a minority interest in Delivery Hero. Fabricio Bloisi, who took over the helm at Prosus and Naspers last month, previously headed iFood.
The JPMorgan analysts said in a note to clients that “Prosus has the financial firepower for mergers and acquisitions” and the management change could be a catalyst for such large deals. Just Eat Takeaway has a market value of €2.9 billion ($3.2 billion) while Delivery Hero has a €6.9 billion equity capitalization.
A mega-merger is one of four options for M&A in European food delivery that the analysts considered. Spokespeople for Just Eat and JPMorgan declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg News. Prosus and Delivery Hero have been contacted for comment.
The food-delivery sector has seen considerable consolidation in recent years. Just Eat Plc and Takeaway.com NV merged in 2020 in a roughly $7 billion deal. Prosus tried to break up the deal with its own bid for Just Eat, but the target’s shareholders spurned the proposal.
The combined Just Eat Takeaway sold its 33% stake in iFood to Prosus in 2022 and now is exploring a partial or full sale of its US unit Grubhub.
Uber Technologies Inc. agreed in May to buy Delivery Hero’s Taiwan operations for $950 million.
--With assistance from Loni Prinsloo.
(Updates with shares in third paragraph)
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