Profits treble at online takeaway middleman Just Eat

Hungry diners swapping takeaway menus for tablet computers helped pretax profits at Just Eat almost treble in the online takeaway group's maiden half-year results.

The London-listed company, which acts as a middleman between diners and restaurants, saw its pretax profits jump from £3.1 million to £8.6 million for the first six months to the end of June.

Just Eat’s rapid growth comes as the online company jockeys for a share of Europe’s $30 billion takeaway market, along with a host of rivals such as Germany’s Delivery Hero.

“We’re a significant market leader in the vast majority of our markets and this really is winner-takes-all economics,” said David Buttress, chief executive.

Revenues for the first half rose by 58 per cent to £69.8 million as Just Eat signed up new restaurants across Europe. The group now has more than 40,000 restaurants in Europe and received more than 27 million orders over the six-month period – an increase of 50 per cent on the year before.

Just Eat hopes its fast growth will be enough to stem criticism both of its valuation and business model, which critics say can be easily copied.

It has signed up close to 1,500 takeaway restaurants in the Republic and generates annual Irish revenues of about €20 million. Last year, it received 1.5 million Irish orders.

The group surprised the City by floating with a valuation of 15 times its 2013 sales. This gave it a market capitalisation of £1.6 billion at one point – making it more valuable than established takeaway groups such as Domino’s Pizza, which also does the bulk of its orders online.

But shares fell below the offer price less than a week after listing and have continued to trade below the initial valuation as sentiment cooled towards internet stocks, such as online retailers Asos and AO World.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014)