Just Eat and Takeaway.com merger agreed with plans to ‘leverage marketing investments’
Just Eat has been taken over by Dutch rival Takeaway.com in a merger that will form one of the largest food delivery companies in the world.
Just Eat sold to Takeaway.com
The group, to be called Just Eat Takeaway.com, will be a market leader in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada when the deal completes at the end of the fourth quarter.
Jitse Groen, currently chief executive of Takeaway.com, will assume the role of chief executive of the combined group, which will be headquartered in Amsterdam.
Peter Duffy, the former top marketer who became interim chief executive following the departure of Peter Plumb earlier this year, will remain in his role until the merger is complete. His role post-merger is yet to be decided. Prior to becoming chief executive, he was the group’s chief customer officer where he led its marketing efforts.
In the announcement, it confirmed that it will maintain Just Eat’s operations in London, Borehamwood and Bristol but said a “full assessment” of other offices is underway. It will also “continue to leverage its strong household brands and its global teams.”
However, it expects to deliver cost savings to the tune of €20m (£18m) a year by 2023, with around €10m (£9m) expected by the first anniversary of the deal’s completion.
It anticipates that approximately €5m will be delivered from the merging to a single brand in overlapping countries.
Meanwhile, it will find further savings in combined technology and marketing services across the business.
“By pooling knowledge and best practices from across both companies, the combined group will be able to draw on its global employee base to realise growth opportunities and address evolving market challenges,” it said.
“Both Just Eat and Takeaway.com have a strong history of in-house development and innovation. The Combined Group owns proprietary products and technologies that can be used across the footprint to create best-in-class experiences for restaurant partners and consumers accessing a portfolio of leading and trusted brands.”
Just Eat currently works with McCann on creative and UM for media buying, appointments that were made in December 2018 and May 2019 respectively.
Susan O’Brien is currently Just Eat’s global brand director while Maurine Alma is currently the chief marketing officer at Takeaway.com.
Alma began her career at Proctor and Gamble where she worked on health and beauty care in Ukraine, before becoming associate marketing director. She then moved agency side, working for WPP agency Ogilvy, and then went to Google before finally returning client side in 2014 as brand director at online retailer Wehkamp and then Takeaway.com in 2017.
Takeaway.com last launched a marketing push dubbed 'Time for Takeaway.com' with ad agency Eigen Fabrikaat, part of the DDB Group, in 2016.