Franklin Eyes Buyout of Whole Earth Brands in $169 Million Deal

Whole Earth Brands Inc.’s (NASDAQ:FREE) largest shareholder, Martin Franklin, has made an offer to acquire the rest of the company.

The serial dealmaker submitted a non-binding proposal of $4 per share in cash for the health food company, according to a regulatory filing Monday. That represents a 28% premium to Whole Earth Brands’s last closing price.

Whole Earth Brands went public in 2020 through a merger with a blank-check firm during the boom in special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs.

Aston Martin Cuts Deal With Lucid For EV Tech

Aston Martin has reached a deal that will see it giving a 3.7 stake in the company to US electric vehicle firm Lucid (NASDAQ:LCID) in return for access to its technology as it seeks to begin making “ultra-luxury high-performance electric vehicles” from 2025.

The deal is to see the British firm making cash payments and issuing 28.4 million new ordinary shares to Lucid, together worth about £182m.

US EV maker Lucid, which makes luxury Air sedans, listed on the Nasdaq in February of last year via a merger with a SPAC.