Just Eat is buying the quartet of companies - which together grew orders by 83 per cent in 2015 - from German start-up incubator Rocket Internet. Management expects the deal to strengthen its presence in four countries with a combined takeaway delivery market valued at over £8bn. It should also feed into the group's plans to become the market leader in all of its territories, while greater scale will allow it to entice takeaway restaurants with a larger customer base and offer diners a better menu.
The businesses are expected to generate significant cost savings and drive margins upward in time. Indeed, Just Eat's directors predict they will lift adjusted EPS in 2016 and boost annual cash profits by £5m in 2017 and £10m thereafter.
Not that the company is starving for growth: like-for-like orders rose 46 per cent in 2015. It also chowed down on several businesses last year; it forked out £445m for Menulog - the market leader in Australia and New Zealand - and snapped up at least nine other companies including Orderit.ca in Canada and Nifty Nosh in Northern Ireland.
Prior to the news, Broker JP Morgan expected EPS of 6p in 2015, rising to 9.5p in 2016.
