Just Eat Takeaway.com NV TKWY.AS, Europe's largest food delivery company, has said that it would discontinue operations in Romania, which is the third country that it has exited this year under pressure to become profitable.
Details
"Competitive pressure, our relative scale and the overall market penetration for food delivery in Romania have been insufficient to sustain a healthy business," Takeaway said in a statement.
"The closing of this market enables us to concentrate on sustainably profitable and market-leading positions."
Takeaway, which posted a loss of more than €1 billion in 2021, quit the Portuguese and Norwegian markets in March.
The decision to leave Romania follows a fractious annual general meeting last week at which the shareholder Cat Rock, which holds 6.88% of shares, compared with founder Jitse Groen's 7.13%, urged the company to shed non-core assets more aggressively. Read full story
Groen said in April he was in talks to sell US arm Grubhub, which Takeaway bought for $7.3 billion euros in June 2021. Read full story
However, at the meeting, Cat Rock founder Alex Captain argued Groen should go further and sell other non-European operations - in Canada, Australia and Israel - regardless of their profitability, to keep strategic focus on Europe.
Competition
Takeaway holds mostly top positions in Europe but faces competition from the likes of Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Doordash and Delivery Hero.
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