Inspire Brands is planning to acquire Dunkin' Brands and take the company private in a $9b deal. Dunkin' Brands' portfolio includes Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins; Inspire Brand’s portfolio includes Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Jimmy John’s.

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• Dunkin’ Brands has 21,000 stores in 60 countries. Its share price has increased by 15% since Friday’s closing. 
• The company was acquired by a private consortium consisting of Bain Capital Partners LLC, the Carlyle Group, and Thomas H. Lee Partners in 2006 for $2.4b. The company went public in 2011.
• For Q2 2020, Dunkin' Brands reported revenue of $287m, down from $359m in Q2 2019. The company is expected to release its Q3 earnings on Oct 29.
• On Sunday, Dunkin' Brands said that there is no certainty that the deal will go through, despite preliminary talks.

Chinese fintech giant Ant is set to raise an IPO of $34.4b at a valuation of more than $313b. The IPO will be a dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai exchanges and is expected to raise $17.2b in each stock exchange.

Biggest IPOs of all time:

• Ant Group (2020) – $34.4b
• Saudi Aramco (2019) – $29.4b
• Alibaba (2015) – $25b
• Agricultural Bank of China (2010) – $22.1b
• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (2006) – $21.9b

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• Ant Group is the largest payment platform in China, processing trillions of dollars in payments annually. It also offers wealth management, insurance products, and small loans to millions of customers and small businesses.
• The shares in the Shanghai tranche were already sold, and 80% of it will be held by 29 strategic investors for at least 12 or 24 months. 
• Jack Ma, the co-founder of Ant Group, said, "This is the first time that such a big IPO was priced outside of New York City, which we wouldn’t have dared to think about five, or even three years ago."
• The company's valuation of $313b is more than the valuation of the biggest U.S. bank, JPMorgan Chase, or China's ICBC bank – the world's largest bank by assets.

A Singapore arbitration court halted the $3.4b sale of Future Retail to Reliance Retail after Amazon had filed a legal proceeding. Reliance Retail, India's largest retailer, issued a statement claiming the acquisition is acceptable under Indian law and it intends to complete it.

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• In 2019, Amazon acquired a 49% stake in Future Group, which owns 7.3% of Future Retail. This gave Amazon a 3.58% stake in Future Retail.
• Amazon obtained a right of first refusal and a non-compete. Amazon also received exclusive rights to sell Future Group’s products online.
• Reliance Retail agreed to purchase Future Retail earlier this year. However, Amazon claims the acquisition violates contractual agreements. The injunction prevents the transaction from being completed for at least 90 days.
• Amazon has been competing for dominance in the Indian e-commerce market and has invested $6.5b into Indian operations, including $1b earlier this year. E-commerce only accounts for 3-7% of total retail spending in India. In 2018, total e-commerce spending in India was $50b, though this total is expected to quadruple to $200b by 2027.
• Reliance Retail is India's largest retailer. Earlier this year, it launched its own e-commerce platform, Jio Platforms, which has raised more than $20b from investors such as Facebook and Google.

A version of this story first appeared in Inside E-Commerce. You can read the full issue here.

Series A funding tracker: Last week, at least 29 companies raised a total of $398m in Series A funding.

Top three categories:

• Healthcare – 26%
• Fintech – 23%
• SaaS – 18%

Top three companies:

• Be Biopharma develops therapies based on B cells. It raised $52m in a funding round from investors including RA Capital Management and Atlas Ventures. 
• Output offers a music production platform and raised $45m in a funding round led by Summit Partners. 
• VENN provides a streaming platform for games and entertainment. It raised $26m in funding this week.

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• Linktree raised $10.7m in a Series A funding round led by investors including Insight Partners and AirTree Ventures. The company provides a platform to connect a user’s entire online ecosystem using link-centric profiles. It has 8 million users, including Selena Gomez.
• Spirit AeroSystems will pay $275m to buy Bombardier’s aerospace manufacturing sites in Ireland and Morocco and maintenance business in Dallas, $225m less than the initially agreed-upon price in 2019. Spirit will also assume liabilities of $124m more than the original agreement. 
• Gene therapy company AskBio is set to be acquired by Bayer in a $4b deal. 
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