CMA clears £6.2bn Just Eat Takeaway merger
Just Eat and Takeaway.com received the green light to complete their £6.2bn merger today.
UK watchdog t he Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found the tie-up would not lessen competition in the food delivery space.
The CMA said it was “satsified there are no competition concerns”.
Takeaway.com fought off a rival bid from Dutch rival Prosus to secure Just Eat in an all-stock £6.2bn deal just before Christmas.
But the CMA then opted to investigate the merger for possible competition concerns in late January.
Today, however, the watchdog said it had zero concerns about the tie-up.
Colin Raftery, senior director of mergers at the CMA, said: “After interrogating how this deal is likely to affect the UK market, we are satisfied that there are no competition concerns.
“Millions of people in the UK use online food platforms for takeaways and, where a merger could raise competition concerns, we have a duty to rigorously investigate whether customers could lose out. In this case, we carefully considered whether Takeaway.com could have re-entered the UK market in future, giving people more choice.
“It was important we investigated this properly, but after gathering additional evidence which indicates this deal will not reduce competition, it is also the right decision to now clear the merger.”
Takeaway.com quit the UK market in 2016 after falling to an £800,000 loss in the face of tough competition. Since then it has become one of Europe’s largest delivery firms.
The merger’s clearance follows the CMA’s decision last week to provisionally green light Amazon’s £442m investment in Deliveroo, a competitor to Just Eat.
That led Just Eat’s shares to drop slightly. The CMA defended its provisional approval of the investment by stating Deliveroo would have collapsed without extra cash.