Uber just made a takeover offer for Europe's biggest food delivery name, and the bid is technically below where the stock closed Friday. The €33 per share offer values Delivery Hero at around €10 billion, while Uber already owns 19.5% of the company plus another 5.6% in options.
Uber confirmed the bid in a Saturday statement after Delivery Hero acknowledged the approach, with the offer coming in at €33 per share, or about $38.29. That marks a 1.76% discount to Friday's close per LSEG data.
The stake build was the warm-up, with Uber crossing from roughly 7% to 19.5% of Delivery Hero's issued capital over recent months to become the largest shareholder. Reuters pegged that position at around €1.7 billion, and the accelerator was an April block from Prosus that gave Uber a 4.5% slice for about €270 million.
Delivery Hero's CEO Niklas Oestberg also said last week he would step down, after large shareholders pushed for a strategic review. That review is what the company says it's focused on now.
The leadership change matters because activist shareholders had been pressing Berlin for months to either unlock value through asset sales or open the door to a buyer. A friendly bid from a strategic acquirer like Uber gives the board a clean exit path to evaluate.
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The other bidder lurking is DoorDash, with the U.S. company signaling interest in either the whole business or just Delivery Hero's Middle East and Turkey operations per Bloomberg.
That matters because Delivery Hero's crown jewel is Talabat, which is the Middle East delivery giant Delivery Hero listed in Dubai in late 2024 while keeping a majority stake. If DoorDash bids only for the regional piece, Uber's full-company offer looks more attractive to a board running a strategic review.
A discount bid is a thin starting position, though, since Uber shares fell 1.6% on Friday's Bloomberg report that a full takeover was on the table. Pushing the offer higher to win over both Delivery Hero's board and Uber's own shareholders is the obvious next move.
The strategic logic for Uber is straightforward, with Delivery Hero giving Uber Eats real scale across Germany, the Middle East, and Asia in one move. DoorDash, meanwhile, has been working through its own deal pipeline, including its 2025 acquisition of European delivery name Deliveroo, which left Talabat as the next obvious regional target.
Three questions matter from here. Does Uber raise the offer, does DoorDash counter, and does Delivery Hero's strategic review surface a third option like keeping the company independent and selling pieces.
The food delivery wars finally consolidating into two North American giants would mark one of the biggest cross-border deals of the year, with Uber and DoorDash drawing the lines around who serves which region.
Antitrust review is the other open question, since regulators in Brussels and Berlin will weigh whether a combined Uber and Delivery Hero gives the U.S. company too much power across European delivery. The strategic review process gives Delivery Hero room to take a higher counter-offer, run a sale of just Talabat, or hold the company together and use the offers as leverage to push for operational changes instead.
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