Amazon to buy Whole Foods in $13.7B bet on groceries

Bloomberg//June 16, 2017//

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Whole Foods Market in Columbia. (Lee and Associates photo)

Amazon.com Inc. will acquire Whole Foods Market Inc., which has 10 stores in Maryland, in a $13.7 billion deal, marking the biggest transaction ever for the e-commerce giant as it pushes deeper into groceries.

Amazon will pay $42 a share in cash for the organic-food chain, the companies said on Friday.

Amazon’s biggest acquisition to date came in 2014, when it agreed to buy video-game service Twitch Interactive Inc. for $970 million in cash, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Seattle-based company had about $21.5 billion of cash and equivalents at the end of March, the data show.

“Millions of people love Whole Foods Market because they offer the best natural and organic foods, and they make it fun to eat healthy,” Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

Of the ten Whole Foods stores in Maryland, five are in Montgomery County, two are in Baltimore, and one each are in Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George’s counties.

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