COMESA Opens Regional Inquiry Into Uber’s $14.8 Billion Offer
Key Facts
The COMESA Competition Commission has opened an inquiry into Uber’s offer to acquire Delivery Hero, putting the deal’s stated value of $14.8 billion to a competition and public-interest test in the common market. According to the Commission’s notice, it will assess whether the acquisition is likely to substantially lessen competition in that market or conflict with the public interest. Delivery Hero operates in Egypt, Kenya, Tunisia and Uganda within the common market, while Uber operates in Egypt and Kenya. The review therefore spans more than one market and geographic sector, and is not limited to food delivery in Kenya. The notice did not announce the investigation’s outcome or determine that dominance exists; it set out the matters the Commission will examine.
The cash offer is valued at €41.50 per share, putting the equity value of the entire company at $14.8 billion, or $13.7 billion after accounting for Uber’s previous share purchases, according to the company’s announcement on July 16, 2026. On September 2, Delivery Hero’s management and supervisory boards approved the offer and recommended that shareholders accept it, considering the cash consideration of €41.50 per share fair and appropriate. The recommendation gives the offer support from the target company’s two boards, but does not determine whether it will be completed. The deal remains subject to meeting the minimum acceptance threshold and obtaining the required regulatory approvals. The regional inquiry is among the approvals on which the acquisition process depends.
The transaction includes separate arrangements to sell Delivery Hero’s operations in 14 markets to SSW Partners for about $1.6 billion, focusing in particular on areas of overlap between Uber Eats and Delivery Hero services. That separate transaction is itself conditional on completion of Uber’s offer. Kenya is among the markets that would transfer to Uber, while the list of markets designated for SSW includes Spain, Portugal, Poland, Romania and Moldova. If the arrangements are completed, Glovo will continue operating in those European markets under separate ownership. The allocation of assets means the deal’s impact will not be uniform across all countries where Delivery Hero’s brands operate.
Uber estimated the combined platform’s preliminary gross bookings at about $236 billion in 2025 and said the deal would expand the number of markets where it combines mobility and delivery services from 34 to 58. These figures show the operational scale the company is targeting by combining its two businesses, alongside its acquisition of Delivery Hero operations in new markets. In Kenya, Uber said on September 9 that the country remained an important market and that it saw “strong potential” there. Business Daily Africa had reported that the company exited Tanzania in January 2026, then Uganda and Nigeria in the week before the report was published. That places Uber’s emphasis on Kenya in the context of a reshaping of its regional presence, while the COMESA notice does not confine its review to the Kenyan market.
Regarding the offer process, the shareholder acceptance period ends on November 5, 2026, at 24:00 Frankfurt time, and completion requires an acceptance threshold of at least 50% of the shares plus one share, in addition to regulatory approvals. Uber expects settlement of the offer and payment of the cash consideration in the second half of 2027, subject to approvals and other closing conditions. In parallel, the Commission set November 11, 2026, as the deadline for submitting memoranda to it regarding the inquiry. EL7-provided closing data show Uber’s share price falling from $68.94 on October 20 to $66.13 on October 26, after closing at $67.62 on October 21, $69.07 on October 22 and $66.70 on October 23. These closing prices provide context for the share’s movement during those sessions, without establishing a link to the inquiry or the deal.