Hostile bidder gatecrashes Just Eat takeover with £5bn offer

A South African technology giant spectacularly gatecrashed the merger of Just Eat and Takeaway.com on Tuesday with a £4.9 billion hostile bid.

Prosus is offering Just Eat shareholders 710p per share in cash, higher than the 594p offer implied by the merger.

The FTSE 250 firm’s investors were due to vote on the Takeaway.com deal, unveiled in July, in December.

Prosus’s offer has thrown the planned food tie-up into chaos. Investors will now have to decide either to take the Prosus cash or shares in the merged Just Eat-Takeaway.

“We believe bringing Just Eat into the family... will provide Just Eat with everything it needs for growth,” said Prosus chief executive Bob van Dijk.

“It’s a compelling offer which makes sense for both companies. We don’t see this as going hostile. We think the offer is attractive for shareholders because of the certainty it provides.”

Prosus plans to keep Just Eat’s interim chief executive Peter Duffy and the management team in place.

Prosus is an investor in food delivery, with stakes in Indian giant Swiggy, iFood and Delivery Hero. It was spun out and listed in Amsterdam by its biggest South African shareholder Naspers last month.

The company said it had approached the Just Eat board with several indicative proposals but had failed to reach agreement. Just Eat said Prosus had offered 670p, 700p and now 710p per share and all have been rebuffed.

The offer is the latest hostile bid for a major company after Hong Kong’s tilt at the London Stock Exchange, which ended in failure.