Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Wednesday June 12, 2013

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Wednesday June 12, 2013:

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Safeway

announced Wednesday that it has entered into an agreement to sell its Canadian operations to Sobeys for C$5.8 billion in cash, plus the assumption of certain liabilities. The proceeds from the sale are expected to be used to pay down $2.0 billion of debt plus buy back shares. The transaction is expected to close in Q4 2013. Safeway closed at $23.11 Wednesday, and traded over $32.00 after-hours.

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Apollo Tyres and Cooper Tire & Rubber Company

announced Wednesday the execution of a merger agreement under which a wholly-owned subsidiary of Apollo will acquire Cooper Tire for $35.00 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $2.5 billion. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013. Cooper Tire & Rubber closed at $34.66 Wednesday, a gain of 41% on 44 times average volume.

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Shares of Barnes & Noble

spiked lower in late trading on Wednesday on a

story that Microsoft

may not be buying the assets of Nook Media.

reported on May 9 that Microsoft could pay $1 billion for the digital assets of Nook Media. Nook Media is a partnership between Barnes & Noble and Microsoft involving software, content, and devices using the Nook Digitial brand, plus BKS' college business. Barnes & Noble closed at $21.30 Wednesday, a loss of 6% on average volume