The founder of Grubhub said he twice attempted to buy back the food delivery business from Just Eat Takeaway for more than $1bn, making the revelation days after the Dutch group announced a deal to sell its US subsidiary at a huge loss for just $650mn. Matt Maloney, who co-founded Chicago-based Grubhub in 2004, told the Financial Times that he led an effort to buy the US unit around the start of this year and in early 2022, with backing from “internationally known” private equity firms.
Maloney joined the company’s management board following the completion of Grubhub’s acquisition in June 2021 and stepped down that December. A person familiar with the matter said Maloney had minimal contact with the company since his exit. JET said in a statement there were “two private equity approaches that had some involvement of Mr Maloney in 2022 and 2023”, adding that “neither were declined by Just Eat Takeaway with the respective firms retracting themselves post due diligence”.