Delivery Hero reverses losses to climb 5% after reporting sales growth in line with targets

Delivery Hero shares sank Monday morning, extending losses from last week, as investors reacted to preliminary financial results released by the company.

Shares of Delivery Hero climbed 5.6% by the market close were down 8% at one stage during the morning session before paring losses to trade 4% lower by 11 a.m. London time.

The financials, which were unaudited and released a week early, show the Germany-based company grew sales in line with its guidance last year and is forecasting stronger profitability in 2024.

Delivery Hero’s decision to share its numbers early were a bid by the company to push back on investor flight last week over the food delivery giant’s asset sales strategy.

Here’s how the company did:

Revenue: 10.5 billion euros ($11.3 billion) in annual 2023 revenue, versus 10 billion euros expected by analysts, according to data from LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization): Delivery Hero says adjusted EBITDA “exceeded” 250 million euros. Analysts had forecast adjusted EBITDA of 254.3 million euros, per LSEG

Delivery Hero said group GMV (gross merchandise value), which is the combined value of overall orders on its platforms, grew 6.7% year over year to 12.3 billion euros in the fourth quarter of 2023, and by 6.8% to 47.6 billion euros in full-year 2023.

Total segment revenue increased 15.7% year on year to 3 billion euros in the fourth quarter. Full-year sales came in at 11.1 billion euros , up 15.7%.

That matches company guidance for “around 15% YoY [year-over-year]” growth in 2023.

Adjusted EBITDA, which is Delivery Hero’s measure of profitability, totaled more than 250 million euros in full-year 2023, Delivery Hero said, and the company reported adjusted EBITDA margin of 0.6%.

Delivery Hero said the results were driven by healthy order growth in many of its geographies.

Most notably, Delivery Hero also gave some rosy guidance for 2024, with the delivery company forecasting group GMV growth of 7%-9% for the year, higher than its performance in 2023.

Delivery Hero said it expects segment revenue growth of between 15% and 17% in full-year 2024, and an adjusted EBITDA of 725 million euros to 775 million euros.

That would mark a tripling of profits from last year.

Delivery Hero maintains it can reach that goal through rising order growth to increase its EBITDA margin incrementally. The company expects to hit a 1.6% EBITDA margin in 2024.

Delivery Hero said it would publish additional preliminary numbers for the fourth quarter in a trading update slated for Feb. 14, when it was originally due to report numbers.

It comes after Delivery Hero shares lost more than 26% of their value last week, slipping to their lowest price since 2022, as investors reacted to a mix of news surrounding portfolio asset sales.

On Tuesday, Delivery Hero said it would sell all of its 4.5% stake in British food delivery firm Deliveroo for £76.8 million ($97 million), a value far lower than the price it paid for the shares in 2021.

Then, on Friday, Delivery Hero shares sank sharply after a report said the company had ended discussions to sell certain assets within its Southeast Asian food delivery business Foodpanda to Singapore’s Grab.

Delivery Hero denied the report, putting out a statement saying that any rumors that negotiations for the potential sale of the Foodpanda assets had collapsed were “false,” and that talks are ongoing.

Delivery Hero has been notably active when it comes to mergers and acquisitions over the past year or so — both on the acquisitions side of things and divestments.

The company snapped up Spanish rival Glovo for an undisclosed sum in 2022. That same year, Delivery Hero also sold its stake in German grocery firm Gorillas to competitor Getir, which acquired the company outright for an undisclosed price.

Delivery Hero’s belief is that M&A should be used as a tool to unlock strategic value from certain assets rather than acquire them for a sizable return to then sell them off.

With Deliveroo, Delivery Hero sold its shares as their value fell significantly from the price Delivery Hero paid in mid-2021, at the peak of the pandemic-driven boom in online food delivery.

Delivery Hero is one of the largest food delivery services globally with more 2.2 billion users.

It competes with the likes of American giant DoorDash, Britain’s Deliveroo, Anglo-Dutch firm Just Eat Takeaway.com, Grab and Indonesia-based Gojek.