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Sabah Meddings
The Sunday Times
Sabah Meddings
The Sunday Times
The founder of Grubhub teamed up with US private equity giant General Atlantic in an audacious attempt to buy back the company he sold to Just Eat Takeaway for $7.3 billion last year, it can be revealed.
Matt Maloney, who co-founded the takeaway firm in Chicago in 2004, is understood to have been working with the TikTok-investor earlier this year on taking back control of Grubhub. Sources said they had ultimately decided against making a bid. However, Just Eat Takeaway shares have plunged since then, raising the prospect of a return.
Just Eat Takeaway, formed in 2020 through the merger of the UK’s Just Eat and Dutch rival Takeaway.com, completed the all-share deal to buy Grubhub in June last year. But after pressure from investors to offload it and simplify the company — and after receiving unsolicited takeover approaches — Just Eat Takeaway said in April it was “actively exploring the introduction of a strategic partner and/or a partial or full sale of Grubhub”.
Matt Maloney is understood to have worked on plans to buy back Grubhub after selling it for $7.3bn last year DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES It is not known whether these takeover suitors included General Atlantic. Maloney could not be reached for comment. Grubhub, an early leader in online delivery, was particularly popular in New York, but it lost share to rivals Uber Eats and DoorDash and is now in third place. Jitse Groen, Just Eat Takeaway’s chief executive, said he had appointed advisers in April to run a formal sales process for Grubhub. Last week, The Sunday Times revealed that it was being offered to potential bidders at a fraction of the sum it was bought for less than a year ago — and it may not find a buyer at all. Maloney, 45, joined the management board of Just Eat Takeaway last June, but his departure was announced only four months later. The company said he was leaving to “pursue other opportunities”. General Atlantic was founded in 1980 and has more than $78 billion (£62 billion) in assets under management. It has owned stakes in Uber and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok. UK investments include Immunocore, the cancer therapy firm established in Oxford and listed in the US. Grubhub pioneered a model of collecting menus and information from restaurants and making them available through its website and app. It generates revenue by taking a slice of the price of each order, while restaurants are responsible for providing their own delivery drivers. But with the rise of Uber Eats and DoorDash, which have their own drivers, Grubhub had to do more to compete. Since it completed the Grubhub deal, shares in Just Eat Takeaway have fallen more than 73 per cent, giving it a $3.8 billion valuation. Investor appetite for tech stocks has dampened, while private food delivery start-ups such as Gorillas and Getir have announced job cuts. Just Eat Takeaway has now hired advisers from Bank of America to find a buyer or strategic partner for Grubhub. However, sources said expectations for the sale had been cut to as little as £1 billion after it failed to attract any serious interest from strategic buyers. General Atlantic declined to comment.
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