Wall Street's M&A Chatter From January 13-16

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Friday, January 13 through Monday, January 16, 2017.

Naked Brand to Merge With Bendon Limited

The Deal:

Naked Brand Group Inc. NAKD and Bendon Limited announced Friday they have entered into a Letter of Intent for a proposed merger of the companies. Under the LOI, Naked would issue the holders of ordinary shares of Bendon an aggregate of 118,812,163 shares of common stock of the Naked.

Completion of the merger is subject to a definitive merger agreement to be negotiated between the companies and approval by Naked shareholders, which is expected in Q1 of 2017

Naked closed Friday at $1.70, up 63.46 percent, trading as high as $3.68.

Microsoft Acquires Maluuba

The Deal:

Microsoft has agreed to acquire Maluuba, which is involved in deep learning research for natural language understanding. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed

Microsoft closed at $62.70 on Friday, up $0.09.

Luxottica, Essilor to Merge in Stock Deal Valued at $48.83B

The Deal:

Essilor ESLOY and Delfin announced Sunday the signing of an agreement under which the companies would merge with Luxottica Group LUX. Under the terms of the agreement, Delfin will contribute its entire stake of approximately 62 percent in Luxottica to Essilor in return for newly-issued Essilor shares to be approved by the Essilor shareholders meeting, on the basis of the Exchange Ratio of 0.461 Essilor shares for 1 Luxottica share.

Delfin would own between 31 percent and 38 percent of the shares of the new company, EssilorLuxottica and would be its largest shareholder.

Luxottica closed at $103.98 on Friday, up $0.44.

Noble Energy to Acquire Clayton Williams Energy for $139/Share in Cash, Stock

The Deal:

Noble Energy, Inc. NBL and Clayton Williams Energy, Inc. CWEI announced Monday that the Boards of Directors of both companies have unanimously approved and the companies have executed a definitive agreement under which Noble Energy will acquire all of the outstanding common stock of Clayton Williams Energy for $2.7 billion, or $139 per share in Noble Energy stock and cash.

The deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2017.

Clayton Williams Energy closed at $103.98 on Friday, down 2.27 percent.