The big takeaway? There is no need to mourn Just Eat's exit from London Stock Exchange

The main lesson here is that secondary listings don't work unless the company is enormous. Liquidity tends to gravitate to one venue

- Nils Pratley

Delistings from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) are routinely described as a "blow", but some hits are painless. The departure of Just Eat Takeaway is one. The delivery firm's life in London will mainly be remembered for a horribly timed and hubristic acquisition that impoverished the poor old shareholders.

The only charitable spin to put on the $7.3bn purchase of Grubhub, a US business, in 2021 is that Just Eat's directors, led by Jitse Groen, the chief executive, must have been suffering a collective case of lockdown fever. Swayed by the boom in demand for takeaways during the Covid pandemic, they grabbed Grubhub at a takeover premium of 40%, even though no easy cost savings were available. Last week Grubhub was sold for a mere $650m.