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Uber has entered into a business combination agreement with Delivery Hero, launching a voluntary takeover offer of €41.50 per share in cash that values the Berlin-based group at €13.0 billion ($14.8 billion) on a fully diluted basis, or $13.7 billion adjusted for the stakes Uber already holds.
Delivery Hero's management and supervisory boards support the offer and intend to recommend shareholders tender into it, subject to their formal reasoned statement.
The offer carries a minimum acceptance threshold of 50% plus one share, a bar the deal is already positioned to clear. Prosus has irrevocably committed to tender its 16.68% holding, which, added to Uber's existing position of 24.77% of voting capital plus a further 11.74% held through equity derivatives, takes Uber's economic interest to more than 53%.
Uber will fund the offer from cash and a committed bridge facility of approximately €14 billion, has pledged not to enter a domination agreement for three years, and expects closing in the second half of 2027, subject to merger control and financial regulatory clearances.
For MENA, the outcome is unambiguous. Talabat, the DFM-listed operation spanning the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan and Iraq, in which Delivery Hero holds 80%, and HungerStation, the wholly owned Saudi platform held outside the Talabat listed perimeter, both transfer to Uber, alongside Glovo's businesses in Morocco, Tunisia and Côte d'Ivoire.
That settles the question that has hung over the region for months. DoorDash had held exploratory talks over the Middle East assets and was told Talabat's stake alone was worth more than €9 billion, while Saudi unicorn Ninja reportedly hired Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS and Riyad Capital to advise on a bid for HungerStation, the platform its founder Ebrahim Al-Jassim built before his 2019 fallout with Delivery Hero.
The carve-up some shareholders had floated, at close to €10 billion for the two Middle East assets, never came; the only divestment is elsewhere.
That divestment goes to SSW Partners, the New York investment firm behind the Veoneer and ESR take-privates, which has separately agreed to acquire Delivery Hero's businesses in 14 markets where Uber Eats already operates, including foodora in Scandinavia and Austria, Glovo in Spain, Poland and Portugal, Greece's efood and Türkiye's Yemeksepeti, for approximately €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion).
The divested businesses will keep running on Delivery Hero's technology and logistics backbone while SSW leads a process to find them long-term owners. Uber keeps 50 markets generating $42 billion in gross bookings, spanning Korea's Baedal Minjok, foodpanda across Asia, and PedidosYa in Latin America.
The combined group would operate across 99 markets with pro-forma 2025 gross bookings of $236 billion, and nearly doubles the markets where Uber offers both mobility and delivery, from 34 to 58, with Uber citing cross-platform users generating roughly three times the bookings and profits of single-product customers.
The offer is conditional on merger control and regulatory clearances, reviews that in the Gulf will cover a footprint spanning Uber's own operations, its minority stake in Careem, and Talabat. Delivery Hero has retained Clifford Chance for antitrust and regulatory matters, alongside J.P. Morgan as its exclusive financial adviser.
"By bringing our platforms together, we will extend affordable, reliable delivery to many millions more people in many of the world's most dynamic economies," said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
The price closes an escalation FWDstart has tracked since spring. Uber bought its first 4.5% from Prosus for €270 million in April, saw a €33-a-share proposal rebuffed in May and a €38 approach rejected as too low, then built its position through the buyout of activist Aspex Management before this week's confirmation of advanced talks.
At €41.50, the offer represents a 127% premium to the unaffected three-month volume-weighted average before May 8, when Uber's pursuit became public, and 33.8% to the three-month average before the announcement.
"It is challenging to build from a European base, yet we have achieved an enormous amount over 15 years," said supervisory board chair Kristin Skogen Lund. "Joining forces with a strong partner now is the right move."
Uber has committed to retain Delivery Hero's Berlin headquarters and workforce until at least 2029, and to invest €2 billion in Germany over five years, including autonomous vehicle deployments with the German automotive industry.
"This acquisition and Uber's planned investment in Germany demonstrate the attractiveness of the European tech ecosystem," said Niklas Östberg, Delivery Hero's co-founder and CEO, who called the deal "this great next chapter" for a company built over 15 years.
👉 Independent reporting on the MENA tech and startup ecosystem. Stories like this exist because subscribers fund them. Subscribe now.
