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Western Hemisphere

Uber Launches $14.8 Billion Tender Offer for Delivery Hero

The Editor

The Editor

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Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

Uber Technologies has formally launched a cash tender offer to acquire Germany's Delivery Hero SE at about $47 per share (€41.50), after Germany's financial regulator, BaFin, approved the offer document. The all-cash bid values Delivery Hero's equity at roughly $14.8 billion (€13 billion on a fully diluted basis), representing a 127% premium over the company's three-month volume-weighted average share price before the deal was first announced in July 2026. Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi and Delivery Hero co-founder and chief executive Niklas Östberg both confirmed the agreement; the shareholder tender period runs from August 27 through November 5, 2026, with settlement expected in the second half of 2027.

Under the deal's structure, Uber will acquire 50 of Delivery Hero's markets, representing about $42 billion in 2025 gross bookings, while a separate buyer, SSW Partners, will take over 14 markets — including operations in Austria, Greece, Poland, Spain and Turkey — worth roughly $12.5 billion (€11 billion) in gross bookings, to address regulatory overlap. Prosus, a major Delivery Hero shareholder, has irrevocably committed roughly 17% of the company's shares to the tender. Combined, Uber and Delivery Hero reported $236 billion in pro forma 2025 gross bookings across 99 markets, nearly doubling the number of markets where Uber offers both mobility and delivery services, from 34 to 58.

Market Context

The deal extends a wave of consolidation in global food delivery, following DoorDash's international expansion through its acquisitions of Wolt and Deliveroo, which brought it into more than 40 countries. Delivery Hero's own growth has slowed, with gross merchandise volume rising just 0.9% in 2025 to $56 billion amid competitive and economic pressure — a backdrop that likely shaped its board's willingness to accept Uber's offer. Uber has previously acquired pieces of Delivery Hero's footprint, including its Taiwan foodpanda unit for $950 million in 2024, making this transaction a culmination of a longer-running relationship between the two companies. The transaction is structured to be accretive to Uber's non-GAAP earnings per share upon close, reaching high-single-digit percentage accretion by year three, funded through cash on hand and a roughly $16 billion (€14 billion) committed bridge facility while keeping gross leverage below 2x.

Key Signal

"By bringing our platforms together, Uber will extend affordable, reliable delivery to many millions more people in some of the world's most dynamic economies." — Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO, Uber

Regional Relevance

For the United States: The deal represents one of Uber's largest acquisitions since its IPO and a major step in its ambition to become a global "super app" spanning mobility and delivery. U.S. investors will be watching leverage levels and integration execution closely, since the transaction is debt-funded and its projected earnings accretion depends on successfully combining two large, complex platforms across dozens of markets and regulatory regimes.

For Germany and Europe: Delivery Hero is a German company headquartered in Berlin, and the deal effectively transfers control of a homegrown European tech champion to a U.S. buyer. Uber has pledged to retain Delivery Hero's Berlin headquarters and workforce through at least 2029 and invest $2.3 billion (€2 billion) in Germany through 2031 — commitments likely aimed at easing political and labor concerns. The transaction still requires merger-control clearances across multiple jurisdictions given significant market overlap, and its outcome will be closely watched as a test case for how European regulators treat consolidation in the gig-economy delivery sector.

The Other Side

Does the market overlap raise more antitrust risk than the divestiture to SSW Partners resolves? Uber and Delivery Hero together would operate in nearly 60 overlapping markets. Company executives argue the overlap is mainly between rides and delivery rather than delivery-to-delivery competition, but regulators in multiple jurisdictions still need to sign off, and the process could extend the deal's timeline or force further concessions beyond the markets already carved out for SSW Partners.

Can Uber actually hit its earnings-accretion targets? The deal is projected to become accretive to non-GAAP EPS immediately and reach high-single-digit accretion by year three, but that assumes smooth integration of platforms spanning 99 markets with different regulatory, labor and competitive conditions — a scale of execution risk that has tripped up other cross-border consolidation efforts in the sector.

What does further consolidation mean for delivery workers and merchants? With DoorDash, Uber and Delivery Hero all expanding through acquisition rather than organic competition, fewer independent platforms remain to compete for driver, rider and restaurant partnerships in any given market — a dynamic that could reduce bargaining leverage for gig workers and small merchants even as Uber points to job and headquarters guarantees in Germany specifically.

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