Great Britain’s Gett may be bidding farewell to its market in the country, but it is taking shape into a brand-new form with it selling its operations in the western European country to Lyft. The price put at stake: $55 million.
This is also the third international acquisition of Lyft, following FreeNow and TBR Global Chauffeuring.
This deal has been going on since January, and most of the proceeds from this acquisition will reportedly be distributed to shareholders as a dividend. Ran Guron, the chairman of Gett, led the transaction. Guron was appointed by the company’s current ownership group.
In August, a Leumi Partners consortium, the real estate investment arm of Bank Leumi, bought Gett for $188 million. Then, Gett joined the Leumi Partners family which included Mizrahi Tefahot, The Phoenix, Meitav, the Australian Lieberman family, and the Klirmark fund.
The sellers in that transaction comprised Len Blavatnik, Russian-Swedish investment fund VNV, and MCI Capital. This sale came a year after Pango stated yes to acquire Gett for a whopping $175 million, though it did not come off as easy, since it was blocked in the end by the Competition Authority due to the fearful concerns that Israel’s biggest parking app, Pango, would control Gett, which is the largest taxi app in the western European country.
So yes, Gett is a prominent London-based technology platform, primarily known as a taxi-hailing app for booking licensed black cabs for business and personal trips. It specializes in on-demand, pre-booked, and corporate transportation, often featuring six-seater vehicles. Gett UK is widely used for reliable, high-quality city rides and airport transfers, particularly in London.
The businesses that went into the deal are saying this is “very transformative” for the business.
The operations of Gett in Great Britain span the biggest cities, including London, but the reason they agreed to the sale is that they have been unprofitable for the past several years. Though, even before this acquisition, the leaders of Gett were already mulling for the sale, and are instead looking at focusing at its Israeli operations, which have been profitable.
This is also the proper timing as Lyft, which operates in London in competition with Uber and Bolt, has been expanding its business footprint in Europe for the previous year.
Taking into account the proceeds from this sale and roughly $30 million in cash that remained on Gett’s balance sheet at the time of the acquisition, the company made the right decision, as its shareholders have already recouped about 40 percent of their initial investment.
While it focuses on its core market in Israel, where it looks into expanding into adjacent, synergistic services, it is eyeing implementing its learnings from its previous operations in the USA and Russia as well.
Gett’s London business had long been profitable, so this isn’t to say that it got it selling itself since it was a flop. In fact, it held a big share of the city’s black cab economy.