Delivery Hero will only decide on IPO next year
By Nadine Schimroszik BERLIN, August 23 (Reuters) - One of Europe's biggest start-ups, Germany's Delivery Hero, the online food takeaway service, has ruled out a stock market listing for this year but could be ready by next year, its chief executive said in an interview. "At the moment, there are other things which we want to concentrate on. We will have created the preconditions for a listing by the end of the year so that we can decide quickly at any time in the course of next year," Niklas Ostberg said. Ostberg said it had also not been decided on which exchange - most likely Frankfurt or New York - the company would list. The company, which has built up a delivery network for more than 200,000 restaurants in 34 countries, raised new funding in June from two undisclosed U.S. public company investors that valued the company at 2.8 billion euros ($3.2 billion). German ecommerce investor Rocket Internet, which first bought into Delivery Hero in February and holds a 38.5 percent stake through its Global Online Takeaway Group, is reportedly more keen to push ahead more quickly with a listing. But Ostberg, who founded the company in 2011, wants to assert his independence. "Rocket is very experienced in evaluating data. In this area, we are working closely together with them. Concerning the development of the company and its culture, we are completely going our own way," he said. "We have many investors and one of them is Rocket. We can learn something from them due to their know-how but we will continue to lead our own company autonomously." Ostberg said Delivery Hero was focused on sustaining its rapid growth, which it has previously said was around 70 percent on a compound annual basis, rather than on profitability. Rocket Internet, which some investors see as a launchpad for future stock market listings of everything from online fashion to personal finance firms, listed in Frankfurt last October, but has seen its shares fall almost 50 percent this year. Another Rocket-backed company, home furnishings retailer Westwing, has pulled back on plans to list this year, Reuters reported earlier this month, citing sources familiar with the plans. Rocket-backed meal preparation company Hello Fresh and classified advertising service Scout24 have signaled they are likely to pursue stock market listings in the autumn. ($1 = 0.8778 euros) (Writing by Emma Thomasson and Eric Auchard; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
