Wall Street's M&A Chatter From August 17: United Rentals-Neff, Hormel Foods-Fontanini, Blackstone-Harvest Fund

The following are the M&A deals, rumors and chatter circulating on Wall Street for Thursday, August 17, 2017.

United Rentals to Acquire Neff Corporation for $25/Share in Cash

The Deal:

United Rentals, Inc. URI and Neff Corp NEFF announced that United Rentals will acquire Neff for $25 per share in cash, for a total purchase price of approximately $1.3 billion. The boards of directors of United Rentals, which had previously been referred to as a "strategic bidder" and Neff unanimously approved the agreement. The transaction is expected to close in Q4 of 2017.

In lieu of this new merger agreement with United Rentals, Neff terminated its previously announced merger agreement with H&E Equipment Services, Inc, HEES and United Rentals has paid H&E a termination fee of approximately $13.2 million on behalf of Neff.

Neff closed at $24.80 on Thursday, up 25 cents.

Hormel Foods Acquires Fontanini Italian Meats and Sausages for $425M

The Deal:

Hormel Foods Corp HRL acquired Fontanini Italian Meats and Sausages from Capitol Wholesale Meats for $425 million. The purchase was structured as an asset sale.

Hormel closed at $33.86, down 49 cents.

Blackstone to Acquire Harvest Fund Advisor

The Deal:

Blackstone BX has entered into an agreement to acquire investment management firm, Harvest Fund Advisors, which has over $10 billion in assets under management. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Blackstone closed at $31.60, down 57 cents.