Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Wednesday March 18, 2015

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Wednesday March 18, 2015:

:

Ocwen Financial Corporation

, announced Wednesday, that its subsidiary, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC and Walter Investment Management Corp. subsidiary

Green Tree Loan Servicing LLC, have agreed in principle on the sale by Ocwen of $9.6 billion in residential mortgage servicing rights on a portfolio consisting of about 55,500 largely performing loans owned by Freddie Mac. The deal is expected to close by April 30, 2015. More than one source reported earlier in the week that JPMorgan Chase & Co.

could be the buyer of the Ocwen portfolio, Ocwen shares closed at $8.73 Wednesday, a loss of almost 3. Walter shares rose 7%, closing at $16.69.

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Shares of Whiting Petroleum Corp.

spiked higher Wednesday, on renewed unconfirmed market chatter that the company had cancelled out of a conference and also renewed takeover chatter. There were multiple media reports in the last week that Hess

, Exxon Mobil

and Continental Resources

, are among companies that had expressed interest in acquiring all or part of Whiting. A spokesperson for the company had told

on Tuesday that Whiting had not cancelled out of any conference. Whiting shares gained almost 9% Wednesday, closing at $40.95.

:

EU antitrust regulators are ready to approve Zimmer Holdings, Inc.

proposed $13.4 billion acquisition of Biomet, according to sources as reported Wednesday by

. The deal was announced on April 24, 2014. Zimmer shares gained almost 3.5% Wednesday, closing at $119.21.