Saitama Rakuten International Says Uber To Acquire Postmates For $2.65 Billion

OSAKA, Japan–(BUSINESS WIRE)–According to finance executives at Saitama Rakuten International, Uber Technologies Inc. has agreed to buy Postmates Inc. in an all-stock acquisition for $2.65 billion, which is expected to be revealed in the U.S today.

Director of Corporate Equities at Saitama Rakuten International, Matthew Barratt, said “Head of Uber Eats, Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, is expected to continue to manage Uber’s combined delivery business, and as per the agreement, Postmates Chief Executive Officer, Bastian Lehmann, and his team will continue to oversee Postmates as a separate service.”

The acquisition will help Uber gain ground against privately-held DoorDash Inc., the current U.S. food delivery market leader. While Postmates has not kept up with DoorDash, it retains a substantial presence in Los Angeles and the Southwest of America, both of which will be important to Uber Eats.

According to data collected by Saitama Rakuten International, Uber and Postmates have been negotiating on and off for about four years, but the talks intensified about a week ago after Uber approached the latter company. The deal to acquire Postmates comes on the heels of Uber’s unsuccessful attempt to take over publicly traded GrubHub Inc., which was snatched up by Europe’s Just Eat Takeaway.com NV for $7.3 billion. The deal has been approved by Uber’s board of directors, however, the plans could still be subject to change.

“On Friday, Uber closed at $30.68, after an increase of more than 4% following initial reports of its Postmates bid,” said Nicholas Cooke, Head of Corporate Trading at Saitama Rakuten International.

Established in 2011, Postmates was one of the first to enable U.S. customers to order meal delivery using a mobile app. In recent years, however, competition has stepped up and Postmates has sunk to fourth position in the rankings. In February 2019, the company said that it had confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering but did not go public. It raised private capital last year in a deal valuing the business at $2.4 billion.

About Saitama Rakuten International

Saitama Rakuten International is a comprehensive wealth management company based in Osaka, with assets of more than US$7.7 billion. The company provides a wide array of retail products and services including independent estate and wealth planning, advisory & discretionary portfolio management services and stockbroker solutions.

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Contacts

Son Jun-Ho, Research Director

son.junho@sribrokerage.com