Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Wednesday May 15, 2013

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Wednesday May 15, 2013:

:

Shares of Red Hat

rose early Wednesday on unconfirmed market chatter that Cisco

may bid $75 per share to acquire the Linux provider. IBM

and Oracle

have both been previously rumored as potential buyers for Red Hat. Spokespersons for Red Hat and Cisco declined comment on the rumor. Red Hat closed at $54.16 Wednesday, a gain of 2.73% on 1.5 times average volume.

:

Dish Network

has reportedly lined up four banks to provide financing for a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint

, according to

. SoftBank

has agreed to buy a 70% share in Sprint for $20.1 billion. Dish founder Charlie Ergen said last week that his focus was on acquiring Sprint, and would consider selling the company altogether if he loses the Sprint deal. Sprint closed at $7.25 Wednesday, a loss of $0.01 on average volume.

:

Shares of Optimer Pharmaceuticals

surged higher late Wednesday, on a report from

that Cubist Pharmaceuticals

had made an offer of $20 per share for Optimer. The bid was made and rejected in the summer of 2012, according to sources. On Monday,

reported that AstraZeneca

and Cubist, were among companies that have submitted bids for Optimer. Optimer Pharmaceuticals closed at $16.18 Wednesday, a gain of 13.5% on almost 6 times average volume.