Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Wednesday October 8, 2014

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Wednesday October 8, 2014:

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Shares of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc.

rose Wednesday on a report from

that CEO Lourenco Goncalves said "multiple" parties are interested, but has no deadline for selling non-core assets. Shares of Cliff's have fallen more than 40% in 2014, due to weak China demand and oversupply. Cliffs Natural Resources closed Wednesday at $7.97, a gain of 2.5%.

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Shares of Netflix, Inc.

and Nuance Communications, Inc.

rose Wednesday, following a

that he was sending an open letter to Apple Inc.

CEO Tim Cook, adding "believe it will be interesting." Various rumors were reported that Icahn could mention a potential deal with Nuance or Netflix. Other Icahn-related issues, including Ebay, Hertz and Clorox, also moved higher following the tweet. Shares of Nuance Communications closed Wednesday at $14.77, and rose another 2.5% after-hours. Shares of Netflix rose 2% to close at $466.86.

:

Shareholder Elliott Management sent a letter to the EMC Corporation

Board of Dierctors on Wednesday, recommending various options including a spinoff of VMware, Inc.

and M&A opportunities. Elliott owns approximately 2.2% of EMC shares. EMC's Board responded that they have met with representatives of Elliott several times and listened to their ideas, as with all shareholders. The Board said it regularly reviews and evaluates the company's strategy, while considering shareholder value. EMC shares rose almost 2.5% Wednesday to close at $28.62, a while VMware shares gained $1.56, to close at $92.98.