Aandeel JUST EAT TAKEAWAY AEX:TKWY.NL, NL0012015705

quote:

Wijze belegger schreef op 8 december 2021 00:08:

Wat wijze woorden over de business vooruitzichten:

Is DoorDash Making a Mistake Expanding Into Europe?
The company will be taking on Just Eat Takeaway on its own turf.

Rhian Hunt
(TMFRhianHunt)
Nov 24, 2021 at 7:40AM
Author Bio
Key Points
DoorDash is buying a European food delivery company.
The all-stock transaction will give DoorDash access to 22 more countries, including Germany and Japan.
The acquisition, Wolt Enterprises, has big revenue gains but is still generating net losses.
Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert

In a bold expansion move, food and retail delivery company DoorDash (NYSE:DASH) announced its acquisition of Finnish delivery company Wolt Enterprises on Nov. 9. The American company is shelling out $8.1 billion in stock to obtain a significant foothold in Europe and Japan.

The stock market responded jubilantly, sending DoorDash's share price soaring about 30% by Nov. 15. Let's look at why the acquisition could be bullish in the short run, but doesn't solve a big long-term problem confronting DoorDash and the rest of the food delivery sector.

A Wolt courier in his car, looking at his smartphone for directions while a Wolt logo bag sits on the seat beside him.
IMAGE SOURCE: WOLT ENTERPRISES.

What Wolt brings to the table
While the stock market reception of the all-stock acquisition cooled after the initial peak, DoorDash is gaining significant current and future expansion potential by making Wolt its subsidiary. Wolt currently operates in 23 countries, including many in Europe, such as Germany and Poland; Central Asia, like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan; and Japan. Its annualized gross order value (GOV) -- using Q3 as the latest quarter -- has risen 130% year over year to approximately $2.5 billion.

Note that GOV is not the same as revenue; it's a metric of how much the orders delivered by the company are worth to the restaurants, with Wolt receiving a portion of that as fees. It is still an overall indicator of the company's success at generating business, however.

The acquisition gives DoorDash a presence in 22 countries it had no delivery services in previously. During DoorDash's recent third-quarter earnings conference call, chief financial officer Tony Xu said his company intends aggressive expansion with the subsidiary, since "the potential in our combined markets create a substantial opportunity to grow gross order value to multiples of its current level."

Wolt, like other delivery companies, is generating rapid revenue growth while continuing to see persistent net losses at the bottom line. During 2020, revenue increased approximately 300% to $345 million, according to a January 2021 press release, but saw a full-year net loss of $45 million nevertheless. It also secured around $856 million in financing, enabling its rapid expansion despite losses.

There are several important parallels between DoorDash's acquisition of Wolt and its European rival Just Eat Takeaway's (NASDAQ:GRUB) buyout of struggling American food delivery service Grubhub. In each case, the acquisition resulted in a large expansion to a new continent. Grubhub is also generating revenue growth: about 22% for the first half of 2021, according to an August report.

However, the stock market has judged each company's acquisition very differently, sending DoorDash's market capitalization soaring by billions, while bidding Just Eat's stock value down by about 81% over the past 12 months. Activist investor Cat Rock Capital is urging Just Eat to sell Grubhub, though it says, "We believe that the market is undoubtedly wrong when it attributes a large negative value to Grubhub," an assessment arguably supported by objective metrics.

The stock market appears to prefer DoorDash to Just Eat, and this extends to decisions about new acquisitions. DoorDash, however, is still struggling with the same major structural problems as Just Eat, Wolt Enterprises, and other on-demand delivery companies, with revenue growing at a breakneck pace while the bottom line remains deep in negative territory.

DoorDash's third-quarter 2021 results show revenue growing at an explosive 89.5% year over year for the first nine months of 2021, from $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion. Yet its net loss grew from $149 million to $313 million for the same period, ballooning 110% year over year -- a faster pace than its revenue gains.

Couriers for Just Eat Takeaway food delivery service ride their bikes
IMAGE SOURCE: JUST EAT TAKEAWAY.

To stay afloat, DoorDash issued more stock, boosting its share count by 649.6% from 44.6 million shares outstanding on Sept. 30, 2020, to 334.3 million a year later. The cost of having enough liquidity to keep operating while generating an unbroken series of net losses is a massive dilution of its stock.

The question remains: How can DoorDash improve its bottom line to meet investor expectations and generate net income, and will its Wolt acquisition help it do so?

DoorDash may expand, but the scaling problem remains
The reason major food delivery services seemingly generate an endless series of net losses might well be scaling. No matter how advanced the delivery app, actual delivery remains tied to individual actions in the physical world. No amount of data collection, artificial-intelligence route optimization, or slick interfaces can eliminate the minimum time to drive a vehicle along a road with speed limits and traffic to a destination.

Another scaling issue is that while a dine-in restaurant can serve dozens of customers simultaneously without increasing its staff, the only way to increase simultaneous deliveries is to use more drivers, stacking expenses faster. These constraints apply equally to all kinds of on-demand delivery, which is why DoorDash's addition of delivery of items besides food hasn't turned its bottom line positive.

A delivery company may eventually solve the scaling dilemma, perhaps with cheap autonomous drones. That time has not yet arrived, though, and simply expanding into Europe won't change the basic delivery equation. Buying Wolt will almost certainly increase DoorDash's revenue significantly, but its new subsidiary is also generating net losses and is likely to just make the combined entity's overall net losses even larger.

Investor takeaway
So is DoorDash is a buy among food delivery stocks after its big acquisition?

The answer is probably found in something impossible to quantify directly: traders' general liking for the stock. Short-term sentiment likes DoorDash and dislikes Just Eat, meaning that DoorDash is arguably a better buy. DoorDash's Wolt acquisition is bullish because Wall Street valued it favorably, even though it's very similar to Just Eat's Grubhub acquisition, which Wall Street valued negatively because of its feeling about Grubhub.

Buying Wolt should give DoorDash several quarters of flashy revenue-growth news with which to reinforce Wall Street's current optimism. It will also probably be strongly accretive to the bottom line if DoorDash solves the scaling problem.

These facts could prolong DoorDash's bull run well into 2022, and maybe into 2023. Its long-term fate is extremely uncertain, and buying Wolt won't change that, but if you're seeking short-term gains, it looks like a potentially viable food delivery stock.

quote:

Fermín Romero de Torres schreef op 8 december 2021 10:44:

Mennnn, dat die Pedro hier getolereerd wordt. Hoe 1 iemand de boel zo kan verzieken. Ik ben hier even geweest maar snel weer weg. Bye allemaal.

quote:

Fermín Romero de Torres schreef op 8 december 2021 10:44:

Mennnn, dat die Pedro hier getolereerd wordt. Hoe 1 iemand de boel zo kan verzieken. Ik ben hier even geweest maar snel weer weg. Bye allemaal.

quote:

Velasquez schreef op 8 december 2021 11:13:

[...]

Ik doe mee. Dit forum voegt echt helemaal niets toe door die constante stroom aan bagger die door deze mil-jar-dair, cq pseudo-fantast, wordt geproduceerd. Begrijp niet dat er mensen zijn die op deze flauwekul blijven reageren. Te zielig voor woorden ...

Jammer van dit forum wat wel degelijk iets zou kunnen toevoegen.

quote:

Velasquez schreef op 8 december 2021 11:13:

[...]

Ik doe mee. Dit forum voegt echt helemaal niets toe door die constante stroom aan bagger die door deze mil-jar-dair, cq pseudo-fantast, wordt geproduceerd. Begrijp niet dat er mensen zijn die op deze flauwekul blijven reageren. Te zielig voor woorden ...

Jammer van dit forum wat wel degelijk iets zou kunnen toevoegen.

quote:

comodoro schreef op 8 december 2021 11:42:

[...]

Ik ben hier pas sinds de 5e maar op dit forum kom ik ook niet meer. Helaas maar het is te irritant

quote:

HABeleggen schreef op 8 december 2021 09:46:

Peter de Waard heeft er geen vertrouwen meer in: www.volkskrant.nl/economie/wat-is-er-...

"De enige reden om de aandelen van Just Eat Takeaway nog vast te houden lijkt speculatie op de overnamepremie. De aandeelhouders zouden niet rouwig zijn als het levenswerk van Jitse Groen in andere handen komt. Maar voor Nederland en Europa zou het een gevoelig verlies zijn als het enige eigen paradepaardje wordt veramerikaniseerd."

quote:

comodoro schreef op 8 december 2021 11:42:

[...]

Ik ben hier pas sinds de 5e maar op dit forum kom ik ook niet meer. Helaas maar het is te irritant

quote:

gbakl schreef op 8 december 2021 11:48:

''Israëlische dochter Just Eat Takeaway ontslaat koerier die vakbond binnenhaalde''
.
soms zijn berichten niet helemaal kosher (maar het eten daar waarschijnlijk wel) maar dit soort groeistuipen
zullen er helaas wel bijhoren.
zo modderen we gewoon door ondanks wat ruis hier op de lijn (het forum).

vandaag maar eens zien hoe we door de periode rond 15.30 komen want dan kakt alles wel eens
zomaar in maar ook dat is geen wet van meten en persen....

quote:

Pedro Ines Kuilen schreef op 8 december 2021 11:38:

Meer dan 3% alweer! Hoe ver gaat jet vandaag nog stijgen??!!! Ik vind dit zeer positief en helemaal als je kijkt naar het volume!!!

quote:

Daanmans schreef op 8 december 2021 11:53:

[...]

Mijn excuses voor mijn negatieve instelling vanochtend(hij stond ook echt -2% tijdens de opening). Als jet deze prijs nu maar weet te houden door de middag heen.

quote:

Pedro Ines Kuilen schreef op 8 december 2021 11:49:

[...]

Met zulke mensen moet je hard optreden dus dat doen ze goed! Maar waarschijnlijk is hij niet daarom weggestuurd maar heeft hij ander onwenselijk en ontoelaatbaar gedrag vertoond!!! Soort van lik-op-stuk beleid dus!!