Just Eat gobbled up by Dutch rival Takeaway.com

It's only a few months since we were told this deal absolutely positively wasn't on the menu. But rudderless Just Eat needs this as Amazon and Uber move in

Just Eat is being gobbled up by rival Takeaway.com

Just Eat told its noisy shareholders that a merger with Dutch rival Takeaway.com wasn’t on the menu when it updated the market in March. Now there’s a deal between the two at the door and steam is coming off the shares.

Reports of something in the offing started doing the rounds at the end of last week. This morning the terms were announced. That’s some smart delivering.

What’s being served up is an all share tie up in which the two sides, who said no no no when activist investor Cat Rock Capital started banging the table and demanding something be done just a few short months ago, theoretically sharing the spoils.

So Just Eat gets to fill the positions of chairman and the finance director, while the shares will have a premium listing in London. But Takeaway.com's youthful CEO Jitse Groen will run the business, which will be headquartered and domiciled in the Netherlands under the Dutch corporate structure.

His colleagues are slated to hold two of the other three top executive positions.

Takeaway.com, a significantly smaller business in terms of number of orders, earnings and revenues, is clearly the winner. It’s eating its rival. This is a takeover in everything but name.

Just Eat’s investors could scarcely be happier about that. The shares shot up by 25 per cent. Compare that to Takeawawy.com, which put something more like 3.5 per cent despite apparently getting the better of the deal.

Part of the discrepancy can be explained by speculation that a counter bid may emerge for Just Eat, and it’s a realistic possibility. Partly it’s because Groen is well regarded and the deal gets Just Eat out of a real hole.

It was much criticised for under delivering under former boss Peter Plumb. When his acting replacement Peter Duffy made it clear he didn’t want the job on the permanent basis, it wasn’t altogether clear where the company would turn (other than to Groen).

When you’re in a sector that is evolving as rapidly as this one is, uncertainty at the top is lethal. When you have companies like Amazon (an investor in Deliveroo) and Uber moving into your territory, that’s doubly the case.

You could almost consider a combination of the two as a European champion to take on the American tech giants were the British government not so intent on tearing Europe apart. If you really want a laugh, the shares in the combined company are split 52 to 48 (Just East gets the bigger number).

Cat Rock’s purring meanwhile. That was the obvious line doing the rounds. In reality, however, it’s pushed the two companies down a road they almost had to follow. Now it’s on Groen to prove he’s as good as the hype says he is, otherwise he'll be the next dish on the menu.