iFood takes Keeta to Brazil's antitrust authority: Prosus owns both sides, but not in the same way

Can a group file a complaint against a business controlled by a company in which that same group owns shares? That is exactly where Prosus finds itself in Brazil, provided a wholly owned subsidiary is not confused with a minority financial holding.

On 30 August, iFood filed a complaint against Keeta with CADE, Brazil's competition authority. The Prosus subsidiary alleges that the platform launched by Meituan is using below-cost pricing, financed by its Chinese parent, to gain market share rapidly. It is seeking a formal proceeding, interim measures and regulatory access to Keeta's cost and pricing data.

Three days later, Prosus's net asset value page showed that the holding company still owned 193.7 million Meituan shares. The headline is therefore literally true: Prosus owns both sides. But it does not yet tell the important part of the story.

The structure that dissolves the apparent paradox

This distinction changes the entire reading. A minority shareholder can be economically exposed to a company without deciding its commercial policy. By contrast, Prosus owns iFood and presents the platform as the core of its Latin American ecosystem.

Nothing in the documents reviewed establishes that Prosus instructed iFood to approach CADE. The filing was announced in iFood's name. Its outcome can nevertheless affect an asset Prosus controls entirely.

What iFood alleges, and what has not been established

According to the complaint as described by iFood and the Brazilian press, Keeta is willing to incur a substantial loss on each order and finance that strategy with Meituan's resources. iFood cites coupons of up to BRL250, discounts of up to 80% and an economic analysis by Compass Lexecon. It argues that artificially subsidised demand can encourage restaurants and couriers to adjust capacity, before becoming unsustainable if those incentives disappear.

iFood is seeking three things: a formal administrative proceeding, a temporary halt to any below-cost pricing and periodic monitoring of the platform's costs and prices. These are requests by a complainant, not findings by the regulator.

The material information for Prosus lies in the relative value of the two holdings

Prosus's latest sum of the parts valued its 193.7 million Meituan shares at $1.9 billion using the 2 September market price. It assigned $6.4 billion to iFood.

The latter is not a market price: iFood is unlisted. Prosus says the figure is based on analyst consensus, supplemented where relevant by post-transaction or internal valuations. The group neither endorses nor verifies those analyst estimates.

The two amounts therefore rest on different methods. Their order of magnitude remains informative: iFood's indicative value is about 3.4 times that of the Meituan stake. This Opulion calculation measures neither voting power, accounting income nor liquidity. It shows that, in Prosus's published framework, the operating exposure being defended in Brazil is materially larger than the financial exposure to the group funding Keeta.

Prosus is indeed on both sides economically. But iFood puts its operating execution at stake; Meituan mainly exposes it to the market value of the remaining shares.

Prosus has already started choosing its side

Over the twelve months ended 31 March 2026, Prosus says it reduced its Meituan holding by $848 million. During the results presentation, management added that non-strategic assets such as Meituan could supplement the resources used for share buybacks. The 193.7 million shares reported on 2 September show that the exit is unfinished; its direction is explicit.

At iFood, Prosus is moving the other way. The platform generated $1.87 billion of revenue and $400 million of adjusted EBITDA in FY2026. Yet it enters the next year with adjusted EBITDA guidance of only $100 million to $150 million. The expected decline is therefore $250 million to $300 million, or 63% to 75% of the starting level, an Opulion calculation.

Prosus attributes the contraction to investment in demand, logistics, the restaurant proposition and a broader ecosystem in response to aggressive competition. The contrast says more than the apparent ownership contradiction: Prosus is gradually selling part of its passive Meituan exposure while accepting a sharp fall in profit at the Brazilian business it owns outright.

CADE is now refereeing three separate fights

iFood's complaint should not be conflated with the sector's other proceedings. Their proximity nevertheless shows the intensity of the contest: each platform is asking the regulator to constrain a rival's commercial weapon.

In the 99Food case, separate from iFood's filing against Keeta, CADE ordered continued review of the contracts and denied the interim measure requested by Keeta because the evidence was insufficient at that stage. The authority also said the 2023 settlement with iFood could serve as a reference and that Keeta's own practices might be examined.

The regulator has not selected a winner. It is defining the rules of the field while new entrants spend.

What the decision could change, and what it cannot

If CADE opens an investigation and grants interim relief, Keeta's launch could lose part of its promotional leverage. That would guarantee neither market-share gains for iFood nor an immediate improvement in its result.

If CADE declines to intervene, iFood would retain its density and brand advantages but face heavily subsidised competition for longer. In either case, Prosus has already warned that defending the market will weigh on its subsidiary's EBITDA.

The case does not alter Prosus's ownership of Meituan either. Only a sale of shares changes that exposure directly. A CADE decision could affect the economics of both groups' Brazilian operations; it cannot turn a minority investment into control or a commercial rivalry into a dispute between Prosus subsidiaries.

Six points to watch

What this complaint really says

iFood is challenging a company controlled by Meituan while Prosus remains a Meituan shareholder. The fact is striking; the asymmetry matters more. Prosus owns 100% of iFood, centres its Latin American strategy on it and expects adjusted EBITDA to contract by as much as three-quarters from the FY2026 level. Meituan remains a $1.9 billion listed minority holding that is already being reduced and has explicitly been identified as a monetisable asset.

The question is therefore not why Prosus is fighting itself. It is not fighting itself. It is defending a company it controls against a subsidiary of a company in which it retains financial exposure. Once the ownership structure, the relative values and the direction of capital flows are viewed together, the paradox disappears and the holding company's strategy becomes visible.