Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Thursday August 8, 2013

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Thursday August 8, 2013:

:

TreeHouse Foods

announced Thursday that it has agreed to acquire Associated Brands GP Corporation for C$187 million in cash. The transaction is expected to close in Q3 2013. Associated Brands is a manufacturer of packaged flavored drink and soup mixes. Treehouse Foods closed at $72.93 Thursday, a gain of 2.5% on average volume.

:

Shares of Smithfield Foods

spiked higher late Thursday on a report from

that investor Starboard Value LP is attempting to form a group to rival a bid from Shuanghui International Holdings, which agreed to acquire Smithfield for $4.7 billion. Starboard reportedly approached Tyson Foods

, KKR

and Blackstone

regarding the formation of the rival group. Smithfield Foods closed at $33.65 Thursday, a gain of $0.25 on average volume.

:

Computer Sciences Corporation

has acquired Infochimps, a provider of big data platform-as-a-service for enterprise businesses and an open source innovator based in Austin, Texas. The acquisition closed on August 5. Terms were not disclosed. Computer Sciences Corporation closed at $52.15 Thursday, a loss of 3.5% on almost twice average volume.