Penn Central Corp., a company headed by...

Penn Central Corp., a company headed by Cincinnati financier Carl H. Lindner, agreed to pay $153 million cash for the 47% stake in Republic American Corp. that Lindner-controlled companies do not already own. The $15.75-a-share offer to buy out the Encino workers’ compensation insurance company replaces a stock-swap plan proposed by Lindner in July that was opposed by some shareholders as inadequate. As part of the new offer, stockholders who filed lawsuits challenging the stock-swap plan agreed to settle their suits. Two Lindner companies, Penn Central of Greenwich, Conn., and American Financial Corp. of Cincinnati, already own 9.8 million of Republic’s 18.4 million shares.