Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Thursday August 6, 2015

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Thursday August 4, 2015:

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IBM

announced Thursday, that it plans to acquire Merge Healthcare

for 7.13 per share in cash, for a total transaction value of $1 billion. The deal is expected to close later this year. Merge closed at $7.10 on Thursday, a gain of 31%.

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Mesa Laboratories, Inc.

announced Thursday, the acquisition of substantially all of the assets and certain liabilities of the dental sterilizer testing business of North Bay Bioscience, LLC. for $11,250,000 in cash. Mesa Labs closed at $119.57 Thursday, a gain of 1%.

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Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc.

, Coca-Cola Iberian Partners SA and Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke AG , a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company

, announced Thursday, that they have agreed to combine their businesses into a new company to be called Coca-Cola European Partners Plc. The new company will become the world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottler based on net revenues. Coca-Cola Enterprises closed at $53.39 Thursday, a gain of almost 3%.