Just Eat, the London-listed food delivery service, is in talks about a £9bn merger with a Dutch-headquartered rival.

Sky News has learnt that Just Eat and Takeaway.com have been in discussions about a deal for several weeks.

Banking sources said that a tie-up could be announced as soon as next week, when both companies are scheduled to publish financial results.

If confirmed, ‎a merger would represent another important step towards the consolidation of the global food delivery market, which has shown spectacular growth in recent years.

Analysts say the sector is already worth £83bn, with further explosive growth anticipated during the next decade.


A merged Just Eat and Takeaway.com would be an international behemoth in the delivery of meals from chains such as Burger King, KFC and Subway, as well as thousands of independent restaurants.

Together, they operate in more than 20 countries, such as the UK, Australia, France, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico and Israel.

They boast a combined customer base of 40m users, and recorded total revenues of about £1bn last year.

Industry insiders said that Naspers, which owns the rival service Delivery Hero, and Uber Technologies, which has also built a significant presence in the market through the Uber Eats app, had also shown interest in a deal with Just Eat.

This weekend, a source cautioned that a merger between Just Eat and Takeaway.com could yet be scuppered by an interloper‎.

Just Eat is likely to be forced to confirm the discussions in a stock exchange announcement on Monday.

A completed deal is expected to result in the combined group being listed in London, and with a market value of around £9bn would easily make it into the FTSE-100 index.

Mike Evans, Just Eat's chairman, is likely to continue in the role, while the leading contender to be the enlarged company's chief executive expected to be Jitse Groen, who founded Takeaway.com in 2000.

Further details of the proposed merger, including the share ratio, board composition and any public listing apart from London, were unclear this weekend.

Just Eat has been without a chief executive since January, when Peter Plumb, the former Moneysupermarket boss, stepped down after less than 18 months at the helm.

The company's shares have been under pressure this year, and have fallen by 28% during the last 12 months amid ‎calls from some investors to pursue M&A opportunities.

The intention to pursue a deal with Takeaway.com will come five months after Cat Rock Capital Management, an activist investor which owns 2% of Just Eat's shares, advocated such a move.

In an open letter to Just Eat's board in February, Cat Rock ‎attacked Just Eat's management and said it should merge with a "well-run industry peer" such as Takeaway.com.

Cat Rock, ‎which is also a shareholder in the Amsterdam-listed company, has been a public critic of Just Eat's strategy.

A merger between Just Eat and Takeaway.com would pave the way for substantial cost savings if their head office‎s were to be amalgamated.

It would also be complementary from a revenue perspective, since there is little geographical overlap between the two companies' operations.

‎Switzerland is the only country in which both companies currently operate.

A merger would come at a time of intensifying competition in an industry which demands substantial up-front investment to build market share.

The most significant recent deal in the UK, which ‎was announced in May, involved Amazon leading a $575m fundraising by Deliveroo.

Last month, however, the Competition and Markets Authority‎ (CMA) ordered Amazon to halt the capital injection, saying it had concerns about its implications for the sector if they were to merge.

The intervention surprised the market because Amazon no longer operates a food delivery service in London, where Deliveroo has its largest UK operation.

Responding to the prospective ‎Amazon investment in Deliveroo, Alex Captain, Cat Rock's founder, had said‎ he was "surprised" that the US internet giant had chosen "to back one of Just Eat's small and cash-burning competitors".

Mr Captain added that he was "confident that Just Eat's significant strategic value will be unlocked if the board engages with the many potential strategic partners available to the company".

Other players in the sector include DoorDash, which recently raised $600m at a valuation of at least $12bn, and New York-listed GrubHub.

Analysts predict that other mergers are likely to follow, although one source indicated that any interest from Uber in acquiring Just Eat was likely to have been diminished by the CMA's intervention in the Amazon-Deliveroo investment.

On Friday, Just Eat said that Andrew Griffith, who until this week was chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Sky News' immediate parent company, would step down from its board to focus on his new job as chief business advisor to Boris Johnson.

Goldman Sachs and UBS are understood to be advising Just Eat on the merger talks, while Takeaway.com is bsing advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

At Friday's close in London, Just Eat had a market value of £4.25bn, while in Amsterdam, Takeaway.com was worth €5.05bn (£4.5bn).

Just Eat and Takeaway.com both declined to comment on Saturday afternoon.