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Groen made his statements on Sunday morning with Harry Mens in his Business Class program. Mens questioned Groen about the delisting of his American stock exchange, the lagging price, his apparent nonchalance and about the question of whether or not he was going to sell his American and Brazilian companies.
The price of Just Eat Takeaway already lost more than 20% in 2022, after the company already fell sharply in 2021. On Friday, the company closed at €38.25, the lowest level since October 2017. The all-time high was €109.65, in October 2020.
According to Groen, the abandonment of his company Just Eat Takeaway in the US is not a prelude to a sale of the American branch Grubhub. “Not necessarily.” “It costs a lot of money, tens of millions a year,” said Groen about the three stock exchange listings of his group in Amsterdam, London and New York. “The Nasdaq listing was necessary to take over Grubhub.” Currently, however, only a very small portion of his company’s shares are traded in New York, and such a listing cannot afford that “little bit of liquidity.”
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A delivery person from delivery company Thuisbezorgd en route to deliver an order in Groningen.
Ⓒ Foto ANP / HH
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The American company is under pressure, among other things, because local governments have imposed a maximum on the rates that food order platforms can charge at affiliated restaurants through legislation. That happened ‘under the pretext’ of corona, Groen believes, who is challenging the tariff ceilings in court.
Break even
Groen does acknowledge that he needs to make Grubhub ‘stronger’. “You can only become profitable with large dominant positions. In the US we are not number one now.” Groen believes, however, that he should be given a ‘similar position to that in the Netherlands’ in that country. In our country, Thuisbezorgd, the Dutch subsidiary of Just Eat Takeaway, is a very dominant market leader, and therefore profitable.
When asked by Mens when Just Eat Takeaway (JET) in England would become profitable, Groen said: “We are close to break even, but we are not ready yet.” Groen said earlier that he wanted to invest considerably more in marketing to win the battle of London from rivals such as Deliveroo. “It’s okay not to make a profit there for one or two years, when it later becomes three times the size of Germany.” Thanks to a dominant position for JET, the German market is currently the most profitable in the world.
Groen indicated that he was looking for a solution for Grubhub that would benefit the company. The Brazilian iFood, in which JET has a large minority stake, regards Groen as a financial investment that can go away with a good offer. But the bids he gets are not high enough for him. “iFood makes 60 million orders per month. That is a lot.” By way of comparison, the Netherlands accounts for 5 million orders per month.
According to the founder and CEO, many investors and entrepreneurs still underestimate how difficult it is to make a food order site profitable. “We have a different philosophy than most other brands. We are one of the few that does make a profit.”
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