Delivery Hero’s Rally Pauses as UBS Upgrade and Uber’s 36.83% Stake Create New Tensions

Delivery Hero stock fell 5.1% to €37.95 after a 94% rally in 30 days, despite UBS lifting its price target to €45. Uber now holds 36.83% stake, while regulatory and overbought conditions weigh.

Delivery Hero shares slid on Thursday, shedding 5.10% to €37.95, even as UBS lifted its price target by more than 40%. The retreat signals that after a blistering run — the stock had surged 94.22% in 30 days and 66.16% year-to-date — investors are taking chips off the table, questioning how much of the takeover speculation is already baked in.

The selloff came against a backdrop of intensifying ownership shifts. Uber now holds 36.83% of Delivery Hero after acquiring a block from Aspex Management at just under €40 per share, according to people familiar with the deal. That price exceeds Uber’s initial offer of €33, which was rebuffed. A handful of shareholders are now holding out for more than €40. Meanwhile, DoorDash has also been flagged as a potential suitor, with reports that it approached Delivery Hero investors about assets such as Talabat, HungerStation and Yemeksepeti — though no formal bid has materialised.

UBS’s upgrade reflects a growing conviction that the sum of Delivery Hero’s parts is greater than the whole. The Swiss bank removed its conglomerate discount entirely in its sum-of-the-parts valuation, lifting its target from €32 to €45 and maintaining a “Buy” rating. The logic: interest from Uber and DoorDash is making the value of individual business units — particularly in the Middle East and Asia — more transparent to the market.

But the stock now trades well above its fundamental support. Wednesday’s close of €39.99 marked the highest level in 12 months, and the Thursday pullback to €37.95 left the shares more than 72% above their 50-day moving average. The relative strength index at 22.3 suggests selling pressure is building in the near term.

Operationally, Delivery Hero is holding its ground. First-quarter gross merchandise volume rose 8.8% on a like-for-like basis to €12.5 billion, while total segment revenue climbed 17.8% to €3.7 billion. Quick-commerce GMV jumped 30%, now accounting for 18% of group GMV. For the full year 2025, adjusted EBITDA came in at €903 million — slightly below the company’s own guidance range of €910-960 million — and free cash flow topped €200 million. Management expects EBITDA of up to €960 million in 2026.

The regulatory picture adds another layer of complexity. Prosus, which still owns roughly 17% of Delivery Hero, is petitioning the European Commission to waive a requirement to cut its stake below 10% by August 2026 — a condition tied to its €1.8 billion acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway.com. Prosus argues that with Uber negotiating a full takeover, a forced sale would be counterproductive. At the same time, an Uber-Delivery Hero combination would overlap in 22 markets, nine of them in Europe, making antitrust approval a lengthy and far-from-certain process.

Strategic considerations are converging with governance questions. Delivery Hero continues its strategic review under co-founder and interim CEO Niklas Östberg, with the supervisory board aiming to name a permanent successor by the end of 2026.

Three variables will now shape the stock’s trajectory: the final price of any formal offer, the outcome of Prosus’s EU appeal, and the depth of regulatory scrutiny that would follow a binding bid. For now, the market appears to be pricing in a premium that demands concrete steps — not just hope.