Amsterdam’s Just Eat Takeaway’s achieves positive free cash flow in H2 2023: 6 key takeaways from 2023 financial results

Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com, an online food delivery marketplace, has published its Full Year 2023 report, showcasing significant improvements and strategic achievements that mark a year of substantial growth and profitability. 

“In 2023, we significantly improved our financial performance in all our segments and generated adjusted EBITDA of €324M compared with €19 million in 2022. Our enhanced profitability resulted in reaching the critical milestone of returning to positive free cash flow in the second half of 2023. I am particularly pleased with the strong momentum in the UK and Ireland, with adjusted EBITDA margin rapidly approaching a similarly high level as Northern Europe. Overall, the business is in a strong position to capture further improvement to our topline performance, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow in 2024, says, Jitse Groen, CEO of Just Eat Takeaway.com.

From returning to growth in Gross Transaction Value (GTV) to reaching a positive free cash flow milestone, here are seven key takeaways that investors and stakeholders need to know:

GTV growth outside North America

Despite challenges in market conditions, the Group, excluding North America, has returned to GTV growth. The trajectory of the year-on-year GTV improved throughout the year, signalling a positive shift outside of the volatile North American market. GTV for the Group, including North America was €26.4 per cent in 2023, down 4 per cent on constant currency compared with 2022.

Record-breaking EBITDA performance

The company’s adjusted EBITDA improved significantly to €324M, representing a rapid growth from €19M the previous year. This growth clearly indicates Just Eat Takeaway.com’s enhanced profitability and successful cost management strategies.

Positive free cash flow achieved

2023 marked the year Just Eat Takeaway.com achieved the significant milestone of reporting positive free cash flow in the second half of the year.

“We were able to use part of our strong liquidity to buy back shares and, under the share buyback programmes announced in April and October 2023,” says the company. 

Around 7.3 per cent of the issued shares were repurchased as of 23 February 2024.

Northern & Southern Europe

In the Northern Europe segment, GTV increased gradually throughout 2023, an increase of 3 per cent to €7.7B. Northern Europe continued to demonstrate strong profit generation with an adjusted EBITDA of €366M in 2023. The adjusted EBITDA margin in Northern Europe remained one of the industry’s strongest and further improved to 4.8 per cent of GTV in 2023 from 4.2 per cent in 2022.

In the Southern Europe and ANZ segment, operational improvements in logistics and more efficient customer services resulted in an improved adjusted EBITDA of minus €97M in 2023 from minus €161M in 2022.

UK & Ireland

In the UK and Ireland segment, the improvement in year-on-year GTV performance was most evident, resulting in a GTV of €6.6B in 2023. Adjusted EBITDA improved significantly to €135M in 2023 from €23M in 2022, mainly due to enhanced delivery efficiency and simplification of our delivery operation. 

With the adjusted EBITDA margin increasing further to 2.0 per cent of GTV in 2023 from 0.4 per cent of GTV in 2022, the UK and Ireland are rapidly approaching a similarly high adjusted EBITDA margin as Northern Europe.

North America significantly increased its adjusted EBITDA to €126M in 2023 from €65M in 2022. 

“Under the new management, we are improving our cost base and competitiveness of Grubhub, including a continued push in new verticals. Grubhub too continues to make strong progress towards free cash flow breakeven,” says the company in a report. 

Profit of €145M in 2023

The loss for the period, according to IFRS basis, was €1,846M in the year 2023. It was mainly due to impairment losses of €1,539M, which were related to goodwill and other intangible assets from past equity-funded acquisitions. 

Additionally, there was an amortisation expense of €452M, mainly related to the amortisation of consumer lists, technology platforms, and development costs.

Excluding the aforementioned impact of impairment losses and amortisation, profit for the period would have amounted to €145M in 2023 compared with a loss of €652M in 2022.