Share price skyrockets
Activist US investor intervenes in Delivery Hero
April 5, 2024, 8:12 a.m
The US investor Sachem Head has chosen the Berlin food delivery service Delivery Hero. According to reports, things could get tight for company boss Östberg. Investors are enthusiastic – and are buying the papers.
According to an insider, an activist US investor has bought into the food delivery service Delivery Hero, triggering a price jump. New York investor Sachem Head holds 3.6 percent of Delivery Hero in the form of shares and derivatives and is seeking operational and personnel changes, said a person familiar with the processes. Sachem Head initially did not want to comment on this or specific demands.
According to the insider, the investor wants to join the supervisory board. He is critical of founder and CEO Niklas Östberg and is considering replacing him. Delivery Hero declined to comment. Sachem recently bought a 5.2 percent stake in British competitor Deliveroo. The Bloomberg agency had previously reported on joining Delivery Hero.
The share, which had already doubled its price in the past two months, shot up by 14.5 percent to 33 euros on Thursday. The Sachem Head share package is therefore worth around 320 million euros. The largest Delivery Hero shareholder is the Dutch investment company Prosus with a good 25 percent, which is backed by, among others, the South African start-up investor Naspers.
Shares also in Lanxess
The failed sale of the loss-making Southeast Asia business (“Foodpanda”) had unsettled Delivery Hero investors. However, the board managed to reassure shareholders that the company had enough money to refinance its billion-dollar bonds in the next few years.
Delivery Hero has not yet published a voting rights notification for Sachem Head. This suggests that the activist investor’s pure equity share is still less than three percent. Derivatives only have to be reported above a threshold of five percent. The insider said Sachem had slowly built up the position over years. The investor has already spoken to management about his ideas.
Sachem Head, founded in 2012, says it manages assets of around $3.6 billion. Founder Scott Ferguson previously worked for the hedge fund Pershing Square. In Germany, Sachem Head has only appeared publicly as a shareholder in the chemical company Lanxess, where the activist holds more than five percent. The investor has won four board mandates at the parastatal Italian defense company Leonardo.