Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) is exploring a full takeover of Delivery Hero SE (FWB: DHER), the Frankfurt-listed food-delivery group whose brands include Foodpanda, Talabat, Glovo and PedidosYa, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The disclosure capped a stealth campaign in which Uber, working with Morgan Stanley, used a mix of common shares and derivatives to build an economic interest of roughly 25% in the German company while staying just below the regulatory threshold that would force a mandatory tender.
Delivery Hero shares closed up 1.88% on the report; Uber slipped 2.25% on concerns about deal price and execution, while U.S. peer DoorDash Inc. (NASDAQ: DASH) firmed 0.67%, according to Investing.com’s same-day price tape. Delivery Hero’s market value sits around EUR10.2 billion after shares rose roughly 110% over the past six months in Frankfurt trading.
How Uber quietly built ~25% under the radar
Per the Bloomberg report, Uber’s disclosed direct holding is 19.5%, with a further 5.6% in options — an economic stake of about 25.1%. Morgan Stanley acted as Uber’s structuring counterparty, the report said. The split between cash equity and derivative exposure matters because Germany’s Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (WpUEG) triggers a mandatory cash takeover offer to all remaining shareholders once a bidder crosses the 30% voting threshold. Uber told German regulators it currently has no intention to cross that line, per Bloomberg’s reporting.
That is the same playbook many strategic buyers run when accumulating a toehold in a European target: keep voting rights below the trigger, use total-return swaps or call options for the rest of the exposure, and decide later whether to convert into a full bid or to sell the position into someone else’s deal. The risk to the toehold approach is that any leak — like Friday’s — tends to push the target’s share price up before a formal premium is offered, making the eventual deal more expensive.
What you’d actually be buying: Delivery Hero’s brand map
Delivery Hero is not a single-country business. It is a holding company that owns roughly a dozen regional food-delivery and quick-commerce brands across four continents. For an acquirer the question is which of those brands are strategic, which are cash cows, and which would have to be divested for antitrust reasons.
| Brand | Region | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Foodpanda | Asia (10+ markets) | Largest Delivery Hero brand outside MENA |
| Talabat | Middle East (UAE, KSA via HungerStation, Kuwait, Egypt, more) | Highest-margin segment; partly publicly listed via Dubai IPO |
| Glovo | Europe (15+ markets) | Spain HQ; co-defendant in 2025 EU no-poach case |
| PedidosYa | Latin America (15 markets) | Direct overlap with Uber Eats LATAM |
| Foodora | Nordics + Central Europe | Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway, Sweden |
| Yemeksepeti | Turkey | Direct overlap with Uber’s recent Trendyol Go buy |
| efood / Foody | Greece, Cyprus | Smaller bolt-on assets |
Why now: the DoorDash global push
Uber’s stated strategic rationale, per Bloomberg, is sharpening its ability to “compete with DoorDash Inc. outside the United States.” That framing matters. Inside the U.S., Uber Eats and DoorDash are the duopoly. Outside the U.S., DoorDash has been building rapidly — in part through its 2022 acquisition of Finland’s Wolt and its 2025 acquisition of UK-listed Deliveroo — and Delivery Hero is the largest remaining pure-play global delivery platform Uber could fold in.
The revenue gap explains the urgency. Uber’s Delivery segment generated $13.8 billion in 2024 revenue (31.3% of total), per the Uber 2024 annual report. Delivery Hero, on a comparable group basis, reported EUR12.8 billion (~$13.9B) in 2024 segment revenue, according to its 2024 results release. A combined entity would be a clear global No. 2 to DoorDash on revenue, with a far more diversified geographic mix than either operates today.
The antitrust complication
A full Uber-Delivery Hero combination is not a clean deal on the antitrust map. Two recent regulatory events frame the risk.
First, the European Commission fined Delivery Hero and Glovo a combined EUR329 million in June 2025 for a “no-poach” agreement and exchange of commercially sensitive information between 2018 and 2022, the EC’s first ever cartel decision in a labour market. Any Uber bid will be reviewed against the backdrop of a buyer for an entity the EC has already labeled a labour-market violator.
Second, Uber’s prior attempt to acquire Delivery Hero’s Taiwan business — a $1.25 billion deal announced in May 2024 — was blocked by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission on competition grounds. That precedent is small in size but large in signal: regulators across multiple jurisdictions are unwilling to wave through Uber-plus-Foodpanda combinations in markets where the two are the top players. PedidosYa-Uber Eats overlap across Latin America and Yemeksepeti-Trendyol Go overlap in Turkey would face the same scrutiny.
The likely structural answer, if a deal advances, is a carve-up: Uber keeps Foodpanda in selected Asian markets, Talabat (and possibly its publicly listed Dubai shares), and the Glovo European footprint outside problem countries, while spinning, selling, or shutting overlap assets. That is messy — and the discount needed to get there is the gap between today’s roughly EUR10.2 billion market cap and what Uber would actually pay net of divestiture proceeds and remedy costs.
What to watch next
Three near-term signposts will tell investors whether this becomes a real bid or stays a market-rumor toehold:
- BaFin disclosure trail — any change in Uber’s reported voting interest toward the 30% trigger, filed via Germany’s voting-rights notification regime.
- Delivery Hero board posture — whether the supervisory board signals openness to engaging or installs defensive measures.
- EC and national antitrust signals — the European Commission’s competition unit (DG COMP) has flagged digital platform consolidation as a priority area; any informal pre-notification activity would surface quickly through Brussels-based reporting.
Bloomberg’s sources cautioned, characteristically, that there is “no certainty” the exploration leads to a transaction. For now, Uber owns the most economically significant minority position on Delivery Hero’s register, has the option of converting some or all of its 5.6% derivative wedge into stock if it wants to push toward 30%, and has banker support in place. That is not yet a bid — but it is more than a watching brief.
Sources
- Investing.com (citing Bloomberg): Uber explores takeover of European food delivery rival Delivery Hero
- European Commission press release: Commission fines Delivery Hero and Glovo EUR329 million for no-poach cartel (June 2025)
- Uber Investor Relations: 2024 annual report and 10-K
- Delivery Hero Investor Relations: 2024 results and brand portfolio
- BaFin: German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (WpUEG) overview
- Uber newsroom: Foodpanda Taiwan acquisition announcement, May 2024 ($1.25B)
Disclosure: This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed before publication. It is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.