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Finland’s Wolt to change hands in all-share deal worth about €7bn

DOOR DASH, a food order platform based in San Francisco, on Wednesday announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire its Finnish competitor, Wolt.

The all-shares transaction is worth approximately seven billion euros, making it one of the largest corporate transactions in the history of Finland. The value trumps, for example, that of the sale of Nokia’s handset division to Microsoft and Sampo to Danske Bank.

Wolt on Wednesday estimated that once the shares changing hands in the transaction are taxed, the transaction will inject about 600 million euros in the tax revenues of Finland.

The food delivery startup also underlined that its service will remain unchanged, be it from the perspective of couriers, customers or participating companies. The service, it added, will remain available in its current form, retain its current name and be provided by its current teams in all 23 countries of operation.

Miki Kuusi, the CEO of Wolt, will take over the international business of Door Dash.

“I must say this is the most difficult decision of my career,” he admitted to Helsingin Sanomat. “Our options were stock-exchange listing and this deal with Door Dash. We saw that together we can build something bigger.”

“As a consequence of the transaction, Wolt will have access to unprecedented resources to continue to expand and develop an even better service, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated in a very heavily contested sector like this.”

The acquisition was announced in the interim report of Door Dash. Until it has been closed, which is expected to take place in the first half of next year, both companies will continue to operate as independent entities.

Aleksi Teivainen – HT