Uber Technologies Inc has agreed to acquire Postmates Inc in a US$2.65 billion all-stock takeover that was expected to be announced yesterday in the US, people familiar with the matter said.
Uber Eats head Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty is expected to continue to run Uber’s combined delivery business, according to a person who asked not to be identified discussing a private deal.
Postmates chief executive officer Bastian Lehmann and his team would stay on to manage Postmates as a separate service, another person said.
The takeover would help Uber gain ground against privately held DoorDash Inc, the current market leader in US food delivery.
While Postmates has not kept pace with DoorDash, it maintains a strong position in Los Angeles and the American southwest, which could be valuable to Uber Eats.
Representatives for Uber and Postmates declined to comment.
The firms had held discussions for about four years, but the talks accelerated about a week ago after Uber approached the latter firm, one of the people said.
The move for Postmates comes on the heels of Uber’s failed bid to acquire publicly traded GrubHub Inc, which was scooped up by Europe’s Just Eat Takeaway.com NV for US$7.3 billion.
Uber’s board of directors has approved the deal, a person said, though the plans could still be subject to change.
Uber closed at US$30.68 on Friday, after it had gone up more than 4 percent on initial reports of its bid for Postmates.
Founded in 2011, Postmates was one of the first to let customers in the US order meal delivery using a mobile app.
However, competition has intensified in recent years and Postmates has fallen to a distant fourth.
The company in February last year said that it had filed paperwork confidentially for an initial public offering, but never went public.
It raised private capital last year in a deal that valued the business at US$2.4 billion.
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