Just Eat Takeaway board ‘torpedoed’ share price by providing misleading outlook before Grubhub takeover, activist shareholder says
Investors should vote to fire the board, Cat Rock Capital said.
Just Eat Takeaway’s largest independent shareholder called on investors to fire the takeaway food website’s supervisory board and chief financial officer amidst a steady decline in its market value.
In an open letter, Connecticut-based activist investor Cat Rock Capital said Just Eat had “torpedoed the company’s share price by providing a misleading outlook” before its $7.3bn (£5.7bn) takeover of Grubhub in 2020.
Amsterdam-listed Just Eat Takeaway (JET), whose market value rose as high as €17.4bn (£14.7bn) in early 2021, recently mentioned in an update it was looking for a “strategic partner” or a sale.
Cat Rock added that the company had “destroyed” €16 billon in equity value because of a “complete loss of trust in the management and supervisory boards’ capital allocation and financial management.”
The investor, which owns a 6.9% stake with 14.8 million shares, intends to vote against a series of shareholder resolutions at the annual meeting in Amsterdam on 4 May. This includes voting against the supervisory board, the re-election of chief financial officer Brent Wissink, and the authority of the board to issue new shares.
It added it will abstain in a vote on Jitse Groen, JET’s chief executive and its largest shareholder, with 7.1% of shares.
“JET needs a new chief financial officer to restore credibility with the capital markets and a new supervisory board to quickly refocus the business on Europe, use the proceeds of divestitures to strengthen JET’s capitalisation, and actively evaluate other strategic options,” Cat Rock founder and managing partner Alex Captain commented.
