Just Eat and Takeaway plan to merge to take on Deliveroo and Uber Eats

U.K.-based Just Eat and Amsterdam-based Takeaway.com have announced they are planning to merge the two companies to better take on Deliveroo and Uber Eats in Europe, reports TechCrunch. Both companies are publicly traded and currently each has a value of around $5 billion, making the merged companies worth around $10 billion based on current stock prices.

From an operations perspective, the merger of Just Eat and Takeaway makes a lot of sense as the two could combine resources to better scale and take on current European food delivery heavyweights. Deliveroo, which is backed by Amazon, is currently the king of online food delivery in the U.K. while Uber Eats is another major player throughout Europe.

But if Just Eat and Takeaway do merge, the combined company would make it the largest food delivery company in the world, with 360 million orders worth $8 billion processed in 2018 alone. While merger talks can always fall through, Just Eat and Takeaway only have until August 24 to get investor approval under U.K. merger rules. If the merger is approved, Jitse Groen, the current CEO of Takeaway.com, would become CEO of the new company, and Paul Harrison, the current CFO of Just Eat, would become the CFO of the new company.