Prosus’s EU Fight Adds New Twist to Delivery Hero Takeover Saga as Stock Surges Past Uber’s Bid

Shares hit 52-week high of €37.66 as market bets on higher bid; EU may let Prosus keep its stake, changing deal dynamics.

Delivery Hero’s shares have raced past Uber’s indicative offer of €33 apiece, touching a fresh 52-week high of €37.66 in a clear bet that a higher bid is coming. But the premium also reflects a less obvious variable: whether the EU will allow Dutch tech investor Prosus to hold onto its remaining stake instead of being forced to sell.

Prosus has asked the European Commission to drop a condition imposed when it took over Just Eat Takeaway.com in August 2025. Brussels approved that deal only on the condition that Prosus – which then held around 27.4% of Delivery Hero – sharply reduce its holding because of overlapping food-delivery operations in Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, Poland and Spain. Naspers, Prosus’s parent, committed to cutting that stake to a very low, undisclosed percentage within twelve months, to refrain from voting, to nominate no board candidates, and never to rebuild the position.

So far those commitments have been honoured. In April 2026 Prosus sold roughly 4.5% of Delivery Hero’s capital – 13.6 million shares at €20 each – to Uber for gross proceeds of about €270 million. A month later it offloaded another block of around 5% to Aspex Management at €22 a share, raising some €335 million. Prosus said both were steps toward meeting the EU undertakings.

Now the calculus has changed. Uber confirmed it is exploring a full public takeover at €33 per share, valuing Delivery Hero at roughly €10.02 billion. By 18 May 2026 Uber already held 19.5% of the issued capital, plus options covering another 5.6%, potentially giving it 25.1% of voting rights. The market immediately priced in a higher outcome: on Monday the stock added 5.92% to reach €37.60 (or €37.66 according to other data), lifting the seven-day gain to 20.47%. Year to date, shares have climbed about 65%.

Prosus currently owns around 16.8% to 17% of Delivery Hero – a block that in takeover terms carries significant weight. If the EU refuses to relax its conditions, Prosus would still be obliged to offload those shares, turning the question of buyer and price into a pivotal factor in the entire process. Brussels has not yet ruled.

Shareholder expectations are already running high. Some investors previously rejected an offer valuing Delivery Hero at €11.5 billion, or €38 a share, and are now demanding more than €40. A meeting between Uber’s chief executive and Delivery Hero’s supervisory board chair in Oslo has added further fuel. Meanwhile, the company is in the midst of a strategic review and a planned CEO succession, with Niklas Östberg set to step down by March 2027.

Operationally, the business is gathering momentum. First-quarter gross merchandise volume came in at €12.5 billion, up 8.8% year on year and above expectations. Delivery Hero’s CFO has said EBITDA is tracking toward the top end of the guidance range.

Yet any transaction will have to navigate a thicket of competition issues. Delivery Hero operates in numerous markets, and the overlapping footprints that triggered the original EU condition are precisely what will make a full combination with Uber legally complex. As the commission weighs Prosus’s request, the price alone may not decide the outcome – regulatory and financial strategy will matter just as much.