Week Ahead (11 August)

Monday, 11 August – European Commission competition directorate to rule on Prosus’ proposed takeover of Just Eat Takeaway.com

On 20 June, Tech investment group Prosus requested approval from the European Commission’s competition directorate (DG Comp) for its takeover of European food delivery platform Just Eat Takeaway.com.  Listed on Euronext Amsterdam, Prosus is a globally active consumer internet group and technology investor with a portfolio comprised of companies active in food delivery, eCommerce, fintech, classified advertising and edtech. It also owns a minority shareholding in Delivery Hero SE.  Protus is controlled by Naspers Limited, a multinational holding company headquartered in South Africa.

Just Eat Takeaway (JET) is headquartered in Amsterdam and operates platforms that enable consumers to order food, predominantly from local restaurants, via websites and mobile applications. JET is active in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Spain in the EEA as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, Switzerland and the UK. 

In October 2019, Prosus launched a hostile takeover attempt of Just Eat with a 710p per share offer of £4.9 billion.  In December that year, this was raised to an 800p per share offer of £5.1 billion which was also rejected by the Just Eat board, who opted instead to merge with Takeaway.com. 

Undeterred, Prosus eventually got a deal over the line in February 2025 when an agreement was reached to acquire Just Eat Takeaway in a €4.1 billion deal. The all-cash offer of €20.30 a share represented a 22% premium over the group’s three-month high.  Nevertheless, the offer comes in at less than 20% of the takeaway group’s peak stock price in 2020.

From DG Comp’s perspective, the most obvious competition concern is that Prosus currently owns 27.4% of Delivery Hero, which directly competes with Just Eat Takeaway in multiple EU countries—including Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, and Spain.  Furthermore, on 2 June 2025, the European Commission fined Delivery Hero and Glovo €329 million for breaching competition rules in the four years leading up to Delivery Hero’s 2022 acquisition of a controlling stake in Glovo.

The regulator said Delivery Hero had used its stake in Glovo to co-ordinate with it, with the two agreeing not to poach each other’s employees, and exchanging commercially sensitive information. The companies had also agreed which locations each would trade in, the commission said, adding that such co-ordination reduced choice and increased prices for consumers.  Thus, the workings of Delivery Hero are already very well known to DG Comp. 

On 18 July, Prosus is understood to have offered to reduce its stake in Delivery Hero to below 10 percent and relinquish its board seat as part of a package of remedies aimed at winning EU approval at Phase 1.  In order to consider this offer, DG Comp extended the decision deadline from 28 July to 11 August.  The merging parties remain confident that Phase 1 approval can be secured and Prosus has extended the acceptance period of its offer for Just Eat Takeaway to 1 October to accommodate the DG Comp timeline.  Should DG Comp retain concerns, notwithstanding the offers by Prosus, it will move to an in-depth investigation where it will have an additional 90 working days to decide on the transaction.    

W/C Monday, 11 August – Swiss government to continue negotiations in attempt to lower 39% tariff rate

On 1 August, the US announced a 39% tariff on Swiss imports (up from the 31% proposed on “liberation day”) which came into effect as of 7 August.  Currently, the most affected sectors are industrial goods, watches, machinery, and food products while one-kilo and 100-ounce gold bars will also be subject to the tariffs following a ruling by the US Customs Border Protection Agency.  Pharmaceuticals for the time being remain unaffected.

A Swiss delegation arrived in Washington DC last Tuesday in an unsuccessful attempt to clinch a last-minute deal.  The room for manoeuvre is limited, given that as of 1 January 2024 there are no tariffs on industrial goods entering Switzerland, almost 99% of US goods entering Switzerland are subject to zero tariffs.  Nevertheless, there was a sense that the Swiss were too reluctant to outline significant investment plans into the US – unlike the European Commission which did so in full knowledge that the numbers involved were unlikely to be realised. 

At a press conference last Thursday, the Federal Council assured the media that intensive negotiations would continue with an additional offer to the US. This is understood to involve:

·       addressing the gold deficit by moving Swiss gold smelters to the US

·       increasing energy imports from the US

·       increasing the footprint of Swiss pharma companies in the US

·       increasing the purchases of US military equipment

·       alignment on export controls, per the UK and EU framework agreements

Meanwhile, political fallout is emerging domestically: the 39% tariff decision has reignited opposition to Switzerland’s planned purchase of 36 US-made F-35 fighter jets, with lawmakers warning the multibillion-franc deal could become a casualty of Trump’s trade war.

Prima facie, all the ingredients are there to make a deal.  President Trump’s focus is currently elsewhere however, so the Swiss may struggle to get his attention this week. Nevertheless, they will refine their offer in the hope of securing an agreement as quickly as possible. 

Wednesday, 13 August – Ireland’s CSO to release figures on aircraft leasing in Ireland

On Wednesday, Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) will report on the aircraft leasing sector’s overall contribution to the Irish economy in 2024.  Over 10,000 commercial aircraft, about one third of the global fleet, are owned and managed by leasing companies based in Ireland – primarily in Dublin and Shannon. Ireland hosts most of the major international players such as AerCap, GECAS, SMBC Aviation Capital, and Avolon. 

In 2023, the Irish aircraft leasing sector significantly contributed to the Irish economy, with a total economic impact of €950 million, including employee spending and payroll contributions. The sector supported 8,543 full-time equivalent jobs in Ireland. Thus, the Irish government is watching nervously in the hope that both the EU and US follow through on the terms of the framework agreement which exempted aircraft leasing from tariffs altogether. 

Friday, 15 August – Trump-Putin Summit in Alaska for Ukraine talks

On Friday, US President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in his latest bid to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, a move that has sparked both hope and alarm among European and Ukrainian leaders. The meeting comes just days after Trump’s 8 August deadline for Moscow to accept a ceasefire expired without progress. Instead of announcing new sanctions, Trump invited Putin for talks, hinting that a deal could involve “some swapping of territories”, an idea already rejected in Kyiv.

Trump has repeatedly sought to cast himself as a global peacemaker, framing the end of the war as his “proudest legacy” and claiming he could have resolved the conflict on “day one” of his second term. In recent days, he has suggested both sides would need to “give up some” territory to reach a settlement. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded over the weekend that “Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier.”

European leaders have moved quickly to coordinate their position. Over the weekend, they issued a joint statement rejecting border changes as a starting point for talks, insisting that Kyiv must be at the table and that any deal must include “robust and credible security guarantees” for Ukraine. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has convened an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers today, warning that any US-Russia agreement “must have Ukraine and the EU included” and “must not provide a springboard for further Russian aggression.”

For now, Washington is focused on the bilateral format requested by Putin, though US officials say it remains “absolutely possible” that Zelenskyy could still be invited to Alaska. Trump’s team, led by Vice President JD Vance, is framing the meeting as an “important step” toward eventual trilateral talks and has already warned that any settlement is unlikely to satisfy all sides.