Benzinga's M&A Chatter for Thursday May 1, 2014

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Thursday May 1, 2014:

:

AT&T

is said to have approached DirecTV

regarding a potential acquisition, according to a report from the

. The deal could be worth $40 billion, according to sources. Spokespersons for both companies declined comment to Benzinga on the report. DirecTV closed Thursday at $80.76, a gain of 4% on more than twice average volume.

:

Pfizer

plans to raise its bid to around $106 million for AstraZeneca

, according to sources being reported by

. The offer would value AstraZeneca at more than £50 per share. Sources say, the new offer could come as early as next week. AstraZeneca confirmed on April 28 that they had rejected Pfizer's $76.62 per share offer. AstraZeneca closed Thursday at $81.09, a gain of 2.5%. Pfizer closed at $31.15, a loss of $0.13.

:

Microsoft

Thursday the acquisition of cloud computing company Greenbutton. Microsoft says the existing GreenButton service will no longer be available to new customers and a new service integrated in Azure will be launched later in the year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Microsoft closed Thursday at $40.00, a loss of $0.40.

:

Bayer

is reportedly close to a deal to acquire the consumer products unit from Merck

, according to sources reported by

. According to sources, the bid will be around $14 billion. Reckitt Benckiser

said on Wednesday it was no longer in talks with Merck regarding a deal. Merck closed Thursday at $59.62, a gain of almost 2%.