(new: Xetra price turned positive, analyst opinion, more background)

FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - A possible merger of two transportation service providers in Southeast Asia kept Delivery Hero investors busy on Friday. Initially, they were again concerned that the hoped-for sale of the food delivery company's activities in the region might fail. As a result, the shares came under pressure of up to 6.5 percent, but then turned around to gain 0.9 percent.

The speculation revolved around a report by the Bloomberg news agency, according to which Grab and Goto, the two top dogs in the region, are approaching new merger talks, according to circles. In addition to taxi-type transportation, they also offer delivery services. The speculation was not alleviated by the fact that a Goto representative denied the talks.

Concerns were running high that the hoped-for sale of Delivery Hero activities in South East Asia - which the company wants to divest on the way to its profitability targets - might not work out if a potential bidder is in talks elsewhere. Grab had recently been traded as a bidder for Delivery Hero's activities. A week ago, however, media reports about a possible failure of the talks due to differing price expectations weighed heavily on the shares.

Concerns surrounding the hoped-for sale of the Southeast Asia business had already weighed heavily on Delivery Hero shares recently, pushing them to a record low. Although the shares have stabilized in recent days, Delivery Hero shares were among the biggest MDax losers in 2024, as in the previous year. In 2021 and 2022, they had already attracted attention due to pronounced price losses.

Over the course of the day on Friday, Borsians relativized the significance of a possible Grab merger with Goto. This is because the latter is mainly based in Indonesia, where Delivery Hero is not active. Outside the country, the overlap is minimal, as it only exists in Singapore. And there again, it is only a matter of driving services, not food deliveries. Fundamentally, the connections were therefore negligible. They might only exist because Grab was able to concentrate its takeover activities elsewhere./tav/ngu/tih/ck/he