Simply put, whole foods are foods that are either not processed at all, or processed minimally. Examples include whole grains, legumes, fresh fruits and vegetables. Think foods that don’t need labels listing a million different unpronounceable ingredients.

Anthony and Susan Harnett purchased the first Bread & Circus store in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1975. The first Bread & Circus sold natural foods and wooden toys, hence the unusual name.

Whole Foods has 500 stores in North America and seven in the United Kingdom as of March 4, 2019. On August 28, 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market.

Amazon

Whole foods – like vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and legumes — retain their fiber as well as the whole portfolio of beneficial phytochemicals and nutrients that are often removed in processed foods.

On June 16th, Amazon announced that it would be buying organic grocer Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at about $13.7 billion. The move catapults the ecommerce giant straight into over 450 physical locations, and immediately fulfils its long-held desire to sell more groceries.

Subsidiaries. Amazon owns over 40 subsidiaries, including Audible, Diapers.com, Goodreads, IMDb, Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics), Shopbop, Teachstreet, Twitch and Zappos.

The Menomonee Falls-based department store chain has granted Amazon the right to buy 1.7 million Kohl’s shares — about 1% of the shares currently outstanding. Kohl’s didn’t announce the Amazon ownership stake, but disclosed the deal in a filing Tuesday with securities regulators.

Jeff Bezos, meet James Bond. Amazon said Wednesday that it has struck a deal to acquire the historic movie studio MGM for $8.5 billion, bolstering its efforts to become a top player in Hollywood.

Amazon is buying MGM Studios for $8.45 billion, the companies announced Wednesday, marking Amazon’s most ambitious move yet into the entertainment business. The deal is Amazon’s second-largest acquisition. It paid $13.7 billion for Whole Foods in 2017.

• The top M&A deals of 2020.
• L Brands (ticker: LB) and Sycamore Partners.
• T-Mobile (TMUS) and Sprint.
• E-Trade (ETFC) and Morgan Stanley (MS)
• SoftBank and WeWork.
• Amazon.com (AMZN) and AMC Entertainment (AMC)
• Uber Technologies (UBER) and Grubhub (GRUB)
• AstraZeneca (AZN) and Gilead Sciences (GILD)

Amazon has bought 11 used passenger jets from two struggling North American airlines, expanding its growing air freight operation even as coronavirus wreaks havoc on traditional carriers.

Amazon has diversified its acquisition portfolio into several market sectors, with its largest acquisition being the purchase of the grocery store chain Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion on June 16, 2017….Acquisitions.

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 25, 2008–Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced the acquisition of Fabric.com, a leading online fabric store that offers custom measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories.

Amazon’s retail store rivals include Target, Walmart, Best Buy, and Costco. For subscription services, Amazon competes with Netflix, Apple, and Google. In the web services category, Amazon has several rivals such as Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM.

Jeff Bezos

Top Amazon Shareholders

• Amazon.com Inc. (
• Amazon’s founder and executive chair of Amazon’s board, Jeff Bezos, is the company’s biggest shareholder, with 55.5 million shares representing 11.1% of outstanding shares.