Uber launches an offer to buy the owner of Glovo, Delivery Hero

BarcelonaThe multinational delivery and transport company Uber has formalized its intention to buy 100% of Delivery Hero, the German group specializing in home food delivery, owner of the Catalan Glovo. The American company, which already owns 25% of Delivery Hero, has valued the German group at a total of approximately 13 billion euros.

The companies had already publicly acknowledged during this past week that they were immersed in negotiations to finalize the details of the operation and, this Thursday, both have issued statements to provide the details. Uber has offered 41.5 euros per share, 127% more than the average value of the shares in the last three months.

If materialized, the resulting company will have a presence in 99 countries worldwide: "We are joining forces to reach more customers, vendors, and riders", Delivery Hero assures in its statement. It estimates that the sales of a hypothetical union would have been around 236 billion dollars (approximately 205 billion euros) in 2025, based on the activity each had separately.

The German group has assured that Uber "has made significant commitments" to the German group's workforce, including maintaining the headquarters in Berlin until, "at least", 2029. It has also assured that it will make "commercially reasonable efforts" to invest 2 billion euros in Germany over the next five years to develop the local workforce and establish ties with the automotive industry.

Uber, headquartered in San Francisco, was born as a driver-only service (VTC) in 2009 and, since then, has extended its services to parcel and home food delivery – under the Uber Eats umbrella – and electric bicycle and scooter rentals.

The riders, in the spotlight

In Spain, as in other states of the European Union, the business of home food delivery has been in the spotlight for more than ten years for having had delivery drivers working as false self-employed instead of being hired. After a long judicial path, the Supreme Court's ruling in 2020 demanded a change of model. A year later, the rider law came into force, approved by the Spanish government to curb the non-compliance of delivery platforms.

Both Glovo and Uber Eats assured that they would achieve a fair salaried model, but the issue remains on the table. The Catalan brand founded by Òscar Pierre announced this March an ERE of 750 workers throughout Spain, eight months after starting to hire its delivery drivers, a year ago. Practically, at the same time, the Ministry of Labor explained that it claims 110 million euros from Uber Eats for having employed 60,000 delivery drivers as false self-employed in the last four years, in terms of unpaid Social Security contributions.