How it started
History
Mafco Holdings acquired Abex, Inc., an aircraft control system & hydraulic pump manufacturer, and then merged it into a Mafco subsidiary in 1995 while the aerospace subsidiary, Power Control Technologies Inc., became publicly traded. Power Control then acquired Flavors Holdings Inc. in 1996 for $180 million, which included the licorice business subsidiary Mafco Worldwide Corp., which manufactures more than 70% of the worldwide licorice flavors.
An Abex, Inc. subsidiary, Pneumo Abex Inc., merged through multiple transactions with Mafco Worldwide. Power Control Technologies was renamed M & F Worldwide in 1997. In 2000, Perelman proposed that Mafco Holdings' major share in Panavision Inc. be sold to M & F Worldwide at Mafco Holdings' purchase price but was blocked by an M & F shareholder as the stock was trading at only 23% of that value.
In July 2013, the firm's main subsidiary, Harland Clarke, agreed to sell Harland Financial Solutions to Davis & Henderson for $1.2 billion. The acquisition was completed on August 16, 2013. In February 2020, Harland Clarke Holdings Corp. relaunched itself under the name Vericast, repositioning as an enterprise-level data and analytics business. The major businesses operating under the Vericast umbrella include Valassis, Harland Clarke, RetailMeNot, and QuickPivot.
From Wikipedia’s article on M&F Worldwide, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2