Just Eat axes London share listing

Just Eat Takeaway is quitting the London stock market in a fresh blow to the City’s reputation as a global financial hub.
The delisting of Europe’s biggest food delivery group was greeted as the latest disappointment to hit the London Stock Exchange, which has been knocked by an exodus of companies to rival centres, a slowdown in trading volumes and a dearth of initial public offerings.
The company, which has a market valuation of €3 billion, blamed the “administrative burden, complexity and costs” associated with maintaining a listing in London and also cited liquidity issues and weak trading volumes as reasons for its decision.
It said its final day of trading on the London Stock Exchange would be Christmas Eve, adding that it will keep its primary listing in Amsterdam, where it is headquartered.
A spokesman for Just Eat said:“As we deliver our strategy to accelerate growth, we have been looking at enhancing efficiencies and made the decision to delist from our secondary listing venue on the London Stock Exchange. The majority of our trading volumes happen at our primary listing venue on the Euronext Amsterdam.
“The UK continues to be a key market for us, home to many of our talented colleagues and our ever-expanding range of grocery and restaurant partnerships. With our network now covering 97 per cent of the UK population, we remain committed to continuing our investment and cementing our leadership position in the country.”
Just Eat will become the latest in a parade of listed company defections from the UK. CRH, the building materials company, shifted its primary listing to New York last year.
Flutter Entertainment, the group behind betting brands including Betfair, Paddy Power and Sportsbet, followed suit, while Tui, the tour operator, abandoned London in favour of its shares being solely listed in Germany. Other companies including Superdry and Nightcap have quit the London markets this year in order to go private.
Just Eat Takeaway was formed four years ago from the merger of Just Eat and Takeaway.com, a Dutch rival, and operates in countries including Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Spain and Israel. Just Eat was launched in Copenhagen in 2001, entered the British market in 2006 and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2014. Takeaway.com was founded in in Amsterdam 2000 by Jitse Groen, who remains as the combined group’s chief executive.
Just Eat had been a constituent of the FTSE 100 since 2017 but was removed in 2021 after its nationality was reassigned to the Netherlands. It switched to a standard listing the following year to make the London Stock Exchange its secondary listing, with a primary listing on Euronext Amsterdam.
At the time of the merger, the original plan was to scrap its Amsterdam listing. However, when it subsequently agreed a $7.3 billion takeover of Grubhub, an American takeaway delivery business, the requirement to list in the United States made it reconsider.
It listed its American depositary receipts, or ADRs, in June 2021 but after a comprehensive review of the three listings to “determine optimal listing venues”, the company decided to delist from the Nasdaq a year later.
This month, Just Eat revealed that it had finally sold Grubhub for $650 million to a New York-based start-up. The long-awaited deal crystallised a 91 per cent drop in Grubhub’s value from the $7.3 billion paid in 2020 to $650 million.
Dan Coatsworth, an investment analyst at AJ Bell, the investment platform and broker, said: “We’re likely to see more companies in Just Eat’s situation think hard about the need to have secondary listings in London if their primary listing on another exchange is functioning well and they are looking for ways to cut costs. If trading is thin in London, it’s hard to justify the costs of retaining the listing.”
Shares in Just Eat Takeaway fell 30p, or 2.4 per cent, in London to £12.21. The shares were down 2.15 per cent at €14.53 in Amsterdam.