Just Eat investors holding 80.4% of shares approve Takeaway's $8B all-stock bid, ending the bidding war with Prosus to take over UK-based food delivery startup
- Investors with about 80.4% of Just Eat stock back Takeaway — Announcement ends months-long battle to take over U.K. firm Tweets: @bloombergasia Tweets: Bloomberg Asia / @bloombergasia : http://takeaway.com/ wins the bidding war for Just Eat with an $8 billion offer, ending a months-long battle with Prosus for the U.K. food-delivery firm https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Just Eat shareholders have settled the takeover fight that began with July's £9B merger agreement between Just Eat and Takeaway.com, choosing an all-stock combination over Prosus' competing interest in the UK delivery firm. The 80.4% approval hands Takeaway control without a cash outlay, leaving the combined group to clear regulatory review.
The irony is that Prosus never left the story: it went on to buy Just Eat's 33% iFood stake outright in 2022 (for $1.8B) and by 2025 returned with a €20.30-per-share, €4B-plus all-cash offer that the EU Commission approved as a bid to build a "European tech champion."
First-order effects
- Takeaway wins the bidding war at $8B in stock, meaning Just Eat holders become shareholders in the merged group rather than cash sellers — their upside is now tied to integration execution.
- Prosus exits empty-handed on Just Eat itself but keeps its Latin American position intact, redirecting its European ambitions toward organic expansion and other targets.
Second-order effects
- The merged pair immediately turns to funding and clearance, raising $756M in new shares and convertible bonds ahead of the UK competition authority approving the deal as a $7.6B combination.
- Prosus' loss forces the competitive map to redraw around scale: the Takeaway-Just Eat entity becomes the consolidated European incumbent that Prosus will spend the next five years trying to acquire.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, European food delivery consolidates through successive mega-deals rather than organic growth — culminating in Prosus' EU-approved €4.1B takeover of Just Eat Takeaway, explicitly framed against DoorDash's acquisition of Deliveroo.
- All-stock mergers of near-equals give way to later all-cash take-privates, suggesting the sector's endgame is fewer, larger platforms owned by concentrated investors rather than public-market rivals.
The trend: European food delivery is consolidating through repeated mega-mergers, with Prosus losing the 2020 bidding war only to win the whole company five years later.