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(Alliance News) - Just Eat Takeaway.com NV on Wednesday said it plans to repurchase up to EUR150 million worth of its own stock in order to improve earnings per share, while it said its effort to improve overall profitability is "running ahead of plan".
The Amsterdam-based food delivery platform said the buyback programme will repurchase, mostly for cancellation, up to 4.2% of its existing shares, based on its closing price on Tuesday in Amsterdam of EUR16.26. Just Eat Takeaway has a market capitalisation of EUR3.48 billion.
The programme, which will be conducted by an undisclosed third party, begins on Wednesday and runs until no later than December.
Meanwhile, Just Eat said total orders in the first quarter of 2023 were down 14% from a year before to 227.8 million from 263.5 million, while gross transaction value fell by 7.7% to EUR6.67 billion from EUR7.22 billion.
"While the year-on-year GTV decline in Q1 2023 is significant, the comparison is with the quarter with the second highest GTV of the pandemic," commented Chief Executive Officer Jitse Groen.
The decline in gross transaction value was led by the Southern Europe & ANZ region, down 18%, and North America, down 11%. The UK & Ireland region was down 6.3%, while Northern Europe was flat when excluding discontinued operations in Norway, Portugal and Romania.
Looking ahead, Just Eat Takeaway guided for GTV in 2023 to be between down 4% and up 2%, with growth skewed to the end of the year due to comparison with the pandemic boost early last year.
The company said it expects positive adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of EUR275 million in 2023, raised from previous guidance of EUR225 million. It expects free cash flow to turn positive in mid-2024.
"The company continues to make good progress on delivery-led operational improvements and is now ahead of plan," Groen said.
By Tom Waite, Alliance News editor
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