Amazon takes stake in Just Eat’s Grubhub to give Prime members access

Amazon has agreed to take a 2% stake in Just Eat Takeaway.com’s struggling US meal delivery business Grubhub and will offer its Prime members access to the service for one year.

The deal is a major relief for Just Eat, whose shares have fallen 70% this year as shareholders demanded it sell or find a partner for Grubhub, which it bought just last year for $5.8 billion in shares.

Shares in Just Eat rose 16% in early trade.

Under the deal announced Wednesday, Amazon will receive warrants representing 2% of Grubhub’s shares, and an additional 13% conditional on the deal bringing Grubhub enough customers.

“The agreement is expected to expand membership to Grubhub+, while having a neutral impact on Grubhub’s 2022 earnings and cash flow, and be earnings and cash flow accretive for Grubhub from 2023 onwards,” Just Eat Takeaway said in a statement.

The company said that Grubhub’s gross assets were worth 6.5 billion euros ($6.67 billion) at the end of 2021, and it made a pretax loss of 403 million euros in that year.