FOODPANDA is laying off an undisclosed number of employees in Asia-Pacific while its parent company Delivery Hero is in talks to sell part of the 11-year-old food delivery business.

The layoffs were announced in a memo by foodpanda chief executive Jakob Angele, which was sent to employees on Thursday (Sep 21), seen by The Business Times. Without citing how many employees are affected, he said that the company’s priority is to become “leaner, more efficient and even more agile”.

“To do this, we need to streamline our operations so we can take on a more structured approach for the coming days,” Angele told employees in the memo. No mention was made of reports about foodpanda’s potential sale in Singapore as well as six other South-east Asian markets, to Grab or other bidders.

Foodpanda had previously retrenched an undisclosed number of staff in February, and prior to that, in September 2022.

The company faces growing pressure to turn a profit, amid tough economic conditions. A regulatory filing of foodpanda’s Singapore entity shows a loss of S$42.7 million in FY2022 ended Dec 31, on the back of S$256.7 million in revenue. 

Angele said that foodpanda plans to review its organisational structure across both the regional and country teams, with some reporting lines to be shifted under different leaders. The company will also streamline certain functions into regional teams.

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“These decisions are always very tough and (I) know it affects all of you, so I am truly sorry we have to put everyone through this,” Angele said.

Affected employees will be provided a severance package, paid gardening leave and extended medical insurance coverage where possible. Foodpanda will also waive the cliff period for long-term incentive plan grants and daily vesting until the last employment date. Employees will get to keep all vested shares as at the last date of employment.

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Singapore, foodpanda was acquired by Delivery Hero in 2016. It operates across 11 markets in Asia-Pacific, after exiting Japan last year. (See *Amendment note)

*Amendment note: A previous version of this story said that foodpanda operates in 12 markets. This has since been corrected to 11.