Uber is trying again to acquire a food delivery rival after it wiped out on its last attempt earlier this year. The company said today it plans chow down on Postmates in a deal valued at $2.6 billion.
The companies announced the all-stock transaction this morning. Uber said the companies’ businesses are “highly complementary,” as they have different customer bases in different parts of the country. Uber in its press release praised Postmates as “an early pioneer of ‘delivery-as-a-service,'” a truly spectacular buzzword jam for our era.
What Uber probably wants, though, is for someone to deliver it a profit. The company lost $2.9 billion in the first quarter of this year (period ending March 31), after losing $1.1 billion each in Q4 and Q3 and a whopping $5 billion in the quarter before that.
The COVID-19 pandemic crashed the ride-hailing half of Uber’s business. Demand for rides dropped by 70 percent in recent months, as people stopped going anywhere for several months and have remained understandably leery of sharing an enclosed space with one or more strangers on the rare occasion they do. Uber laid off 6,700 workers—about a quarter of its global full-time workforce—across two rounds of job cuts in May.
Food delivery businesses, on the other hand, have seen increased demand as all the people who can’t go anywhere to get anything instead use apps and services to have all those things, including restaurant meals, brought to them. Bookings on Uber Eats more than doubled in Q2 2020 as compared to 2019, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a written statement.
Many merger agreements contain language requiring one company to pay a penalty to the other if for some reason the deal cannot come to fruition. In cases that are likely to receive a great deal of scrutiny from regulators, the company being acquired may request the company doing the buying to compensate them if the deal gets nixed by the government. That fee is reportedly what GrubHub and Uber were stuck on, and with good reason: the mere rumor that Uber and GrubHub might merge already had state and federal regulators deeply concerned.
GrubHub ultimately went a different direction entirely, instead agreeing in June to a sale to Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway in an all-stock deal valued at $7.3 billion.
Uber’s Postmates plan may face an easier path to approval than its GrubHub aspirations did, but regulators are still likely to scrutinize the deal closely. About 95 percent of the US restaurant food delivery market is controlled by four businesses: GrubHub (which includes Seamless), DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eats.
TORONTO – Cineplex Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year ago as it was hit by a fine for deceptive marketing practices imposed by the Competition Tribunal.
The movie theatre company says it lost $24.7 million or 39 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $29.7 million or 40 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
The results in the most recent quarter included a $39.2-million provision related to the Competition Tribunal decision, which Cineplex is appealing.
The Competition Bureau accused the company of misleading theatregoers by not immediately presenting them with the full price of a movie ticket when they purchased seats online, a view the company has rejected.
Revenue for the quarter totalled $395.6 million, down from $414.5 million in the same quarter last year, while theatre attendance totalled 13.3 million for the quarter compared with nearly 15.7 million a year earlier.
Box office revenue per patron in the quarter climbed to $13.19 compared with $12 in the same quarter last year, while concession revenue per patron amounted to $9.85, up from $8.44 a year ago.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
