Just Eat to explore partial or full sale of Grubhub
The food delivery aggregator said that it wanted to create and realise value from its portfolio of assets, which could include a sale of Grubhub or the introduction of a strategic partner.
Just Eat bought Grubhub for £5.75b in 2020, creating the largest food delivery service outside China.
In its Q1 results for 2022 the company has also reported that demand for takeaway food is showing no signs of slowing as the UK returns to some form of normality.
It says that in first four months of this year it maintained the same volume of orders that it achieved in the lockdown period in Q1 2021.
The business reported order numbers of 67.6m for Q1 2022, compared to 67.3m in Q1 2021, with Gross Transaction Value (GTV) of €1.65bn, compared to €1.55bn in the comparable quarter last year – a rise of 7%.
The trend in order levels was also true across the whole business, it says, with total orders down -1% to 264.1m, and GTV or €7.2bn – up 4% on the Q1 2021.
“After two years of exceptional growth, we maintain the same high level of orders that were processed during the Covid-19 restrictions," says Jitse Groen, CEO at Just Eat Takeaway.com.
“Our priority for 2022 lies in enhancing profitability and strengthening our business. We expect profitability to gradually improve throughout the year, and to return to positive adjusted EBITDA in 2023.”
During the pandemic the company says it benefited from a rapidly increasing consumer base, but that as a result it had experienced a higher-than-normal level of churn during the first half of 2022, despite a lower relative churn level of this new consumer group versus pre-pandemic consumers.
It acknowledges that growth in the second quarter of 2022 will remain challenging, but says that key growth drivers, such as average monthly order frequency and returning consumers are expected to remain above pre-pandemic and even above pandemic levels.
