M&A
Uber Technologies has made an indicative takeover proposal valuing Delivery Hero at €10 billion (approximately $11.6 billion), priced at €33 per share. The approach, confirmed by Delivery Hero, sent the Berlin-listed company's shares up as much as 13% in early European trading. Uber has been building its position in the German food-delivery group, emerging as Delivery Hero's largest shareholder through sizable stake purchases in the weeks before the formal approach. The bid arrives at an inflection point for Delivery Hero, which has undergone a significant strategic reset — including a restructuring of its ownership structure and the announced departure of its co-founder and chief executive. The company operates across multiple markets, giving Uber a potential springboard to accelerate its food-delivery presence beyond its existing footprint. The proposal is described as indicative and addressed to all shareholders, meaning no formal offer documentation has been published. At the offer price of €33 per share, the deal would rank among the largest cross-border technology-sector acquisitions in recent years. Regulatory scrutiny across European competition authorities is an obvious next step given the combined market positions of both businesses in food delivery. No legal advisers have been named in the sources.
Why this matters
A bid of this scale in the European technology and consumer-delivery sector activates a full suite of M&A practice areas: public takeover work under German securities law, EU and potentially national-level merger control filings, extensive due diligence on multi-jurisdictional operating licences and platform contracts, and employment law considerations arising from any post-completion restructuring. The 'largest shareholder creep before bid' dynamic — Uber accumulating a stake before launching a formal approach — is a classic pre-announcement strategy that raises questions about disclosure obligations and concert party rules in European markets. The 'why now' trigger is clearly Delivery Hero's strategic and governance reset: a distressed seller dynamic creates a window for the acquirer to move. For City firms, a cross-border public M&A mandate of this size represents one of the most complex and fee-generative transaction types available.
On the Ground
On a transaction of this type, a trainee would manage the CP (conditions precedent) checklist tracking merger control filings across jurisdictions, help compile the disclosure letter schedules, and coordinate Companies House and equivalent European registry filings on completion. Drafting board minutes for shareholder approval resolutions and indexing the completion bible would also fall within the trainee's remit.
Interview prep
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“What merger control approvals would Uber's takeover of Delivery Hero require, and which jurisdictions are most likely to present substantive competition concerns?”
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