UK competition authority approves the $7.6B Just Eat-Takeaway merger, as the pair raises $756M in the form of new shares and convertible bonds
On the heels of Amazon getting approval from the competition authority to proceed with an investment leading a $575 million round …
Context & Ripple Effects
This approval closes the loop on a deal that began with the July 2019 announcement of Just Eat's merger with Dutch rival Takeaway.com, then survived a bidding war when Prosus counterbid before Just Eat shareholders holding 80.4% of shares backed Takeaway's all-stock offer in January 2020. The UK competition authority's sign-off — notable given it had previously scrutinized Just Eat's smaller Hungryhouse acquisition — removes the last regulatory hurdle, and the $756M share and convertible bond raise gives the combined group fresh capital as it closes.
The clearance also fits a pattern at the UK watchdog: months later it approved Amazon's investment for a 16% stake in Deliveroo, signaling a permissive stance toward consolidation in food delivery. That permissiveness ultimately reshaped the sector — the Just Eat-Takeaway combination itself was later absorbed when the EU cleared Prosus' €4.1B takeover, with Deliveroo ending up under DoorDash.
First-order effects
- Just Eat and Takeaway can now complete their $7.6B all-stock combination, and the $756M raise in new shares and convertible bonds shores up the combined balance sheet at closing.
- Prosus, which lost the bidding war for Just Eat, is left watching the two rivals merge without it — its path back into the sector shifts from acquisition to waiting.
Second-order effects
- Rival Deliveroo, freshly backed by a $575M round led by Amazon, faces a larger, better-capitalized Just Eat-Takeaway across European markets, intensifying the capital race in food delivery.
- A combined Just Eat-Takeaway with new convertible capacity gains flexibility to fund subsidies and expansion, pressuring smaller regional delivery players on pricing.
Third-order effects
- With the UK regulator clearing both Just Eat-Takeaway and Amazon-Deliveroo, food delivery consolidation became the accepted endgame — culminating in Prosus taking over Just Eat Takeaway and DoorDash acquiring Deliveroo, leaving the sector in the hands of a few well-funded champions.
- The episode shows regulators treating scale in food delivery as pro-competitive rather than a blocker, a precedent that lowered the bar for subsequent mega-deals in the sector.
The trend: European food delivery is consolidating through regulator-approved mega-mergers, with Just Eat-Takeaway the first of a wave that ended in Prosus and DoorDash owning the field.