Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Monday December 12, 2011

Last week's M&A chatter for Vulcan Materials, turned into an actual offer this week, though from a different buyer. Martin Marietta Materials Makes Offer to Acquire Vulcan Materials The Offer: Martin Marietta Materials MLM makes an unsolicited offer of 0.50 shares of MLM for each share of Vulcan Materials VMC. December 6 chatter had Swedish company, Holcim, offering up to $60 per share for Vulcan. Vulcan Materials confirmed the offer from Martin Marietta and Vulcan's board of directors said they will review it. Vulcan shares spiked sharply higher on the offer at 10:32am, hitting a high of $43.81. Vulcan shares had been halted prior to the announcement and then were halted three times on circuit breakers after resumption of trade. Shares of Vulcan Materials settled off the highs, closing at 38.70, a gain of almost 16% for the day. Vulcan traded in a range of $31.87 to $43.81 on 6 times the average daily volume. Verizon/Amazon to Acquire Netflix Rumor #1: Verizon VZ to acquire Netflix NFLX, according to dealReporter. No price mentioned. Rumor #2: Amazon AMZN to acquire Netflix NFLX for around $90 per share. Benzinga placed calls to Netflix, Amazon and Verizon. Netflix declined to comment on chatter. Amazon and Verizon did not respond. Netflix shares spiked higher on the news at 10:30am, hitting a high of $76.83 Shares of Netflix traded in a range of $69.52 to $$76.83, on 30% higher than average volume. Netflix closed at $75.26, a gain of 6%. Whirlpool Seeking Buyer Rumor: Whirlpool WHR has hired Citigroup to explore options, including the sale of the company. The rumored asking price is $65 to $70 per share. Benzinga placed a call into Whirlpool, but did not get a reply. Whirlpool shares traded in a range of $48.27 to $49.46 on about 15% higher than the average daily volume. Whirlpool closed at $49.41, a loss of 0.76% for the day. ??? to Acquire Monster Worldwide Rumor: Monster Worldwide MWW is attracting bids from various buyers at current price level. No specific potential buyers were mentioned. Bloomberg Television reported this story at 8:30am. Monster Worldwide did not respond to contact from Benzinga. Monster Worldwide shares traded in a range of $7.73 to $8.12 on twice the average daily volume and closed at $8.05, a gain of 1% for the day. Sun Healthcare Investor Seeks Sale of Company The News: Sun Healthcare Group SUNH investor Clinton Group, sent a letter to the Board of Directors of Sun to urge the Board to sell the company. In particular the letter noted that: Clinton believes Sun is undervalued in the public markets; Clinton believes Sun has sufficient liquidity, could continue to successfully operate as a standalone business, and has access the debt markets for refinancing; but Clinton believes a sale today would maximize shareholder value because such a sale would likely yield Sun shareholders a price in the $6-8 range, given that the likely buyers could save substantial operating and back-office costs, trade at higher multiples, and have more scale than Sun. Sun Healthcare shares traded in a range of $3.07 to $3.72 on 3 times the average daily volume and closed at $3.69, a gain of 17.50% for the day.