Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Tuesday August 12, 2014

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Tuesday August 12, 2014:

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Shares of Smith & Nephew

moved higher early Tuesday, on a note from Needham's Michael Matson, who said an acquisition by Stryker

is highly probable.

reported on May 28, that Stryker was preparing a bid for Smith & Nephew. Stryker responded to the report stating, it did not intend to make an offer, but reserved the right to make one in six months. Smith & Nephew shares closed Tuesday at $13.10, a gain of 30%.

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Tiptree Financial

and Fortegra Financial

announced Tuesday, the signing of a merger agreement, under which Tiptree will acquire Fortegra for $10.00 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $218 million. Tiptree and Fortegra expect to complete the deal in late 2014 or early 2015. Fortegra Financial closed at $9.87 Tuesday, a gain of 40%, while Tiptree shares lost more than 2%, to close at $7.05.

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Electronic payment solutions provider Comdata, announced Tuesday that its parent company, Ceridian LLC, a portfolio company of funds affiliated with Thomas H. Lee Partners and Fidelity National Financial

, has entered into an agreement to sell Comdata to FleetCor Technologies

for approximately $3.45 billion. The deal includes approximately $2.4 billion in cash, plus approximately 7.3 million shares of FleetCor common stock. The deal is expected to close in 2014. FleetCor Technologies closed Tuesday at $129.44, a loss of 1.5%.