Zomato to sell UAE food delivery biz for $172 mn

Online restaurant guide and food ordering firm Zomato will sell its UAE food delivery business to Germany-headquartered Delivery Hero Group for about USD 172 million (nearly Rs 1,220 crore), one of the company's largest shareholders Info Edge said Monday. The Gurugram-based firm has also raised around USD 105 million in the ongoing round of funding, Info Edge said in a filing on the BSE.

"As a result, upon closing, our shareholding in Zomato will be 26.38 per cent on a fully converted and diluted basis," it added. As part of the transaction, Zomato Media Pvt Ltd has entered into an agreement to sell its UAE food delivery business to Delivery Hero Group through its fully owned subsidiary Talabat Middle East Services Company LLC.

The consideration for the transaction is about USD 172 million, it added. "Zomato and Delivery Hero will enter into services agreements (on the) basis (of) which Zomato will continue to run the said business on its own platform," it added. Zomato continues to own and run its other businesses such as Ad Sales, Gold, etc, in the country, Info Edge added.

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In a separate statement, Delivery Hero Group said it would participate in Zomato's latest funding round by investing USD 50 million into Zomato's global business to become a Top 10 shareholder and also enter into a material operational partnership agreement. "Zomato has built a successful food delivery business in the UAE and India on the back of its restaurant search and discovery app and website. The acquisition will allow us to further improve our service to customers in the UAE," Delivery Hero CEO Niklas Ostberg said.

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal said the company is looking "forward to learning from their (Delivery Hero's) global experience to help us strengthen our fast growing India food delivery business". In the regulatory filing, Info Edge further said, "In addition, Zomato has concluded its ongoing funding round with an additional second tranche of about USD 105 million."

The new investors in this round include Delivery Hero and Glade Brook Capital, it added. "Including the USD 210 million fund raise intimated in October 2018, the total amount of equity capital raised in this round of financing amounts to about USO 315 million," Info Edge said.