1)    The board of Alexa Life Sciences (PINK:AFXSF) has unanimously backed an all-cash takeover offer from Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:VRX) after the company raised its bid to trump a competing offer from Paladin Labs (PINK:PLDLF).

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2)    Pharmaceutical Product Development (NASDAQ:PPDI) has confirmed that it will go private, agreeing to an all-cash buyout offer for $3.9 billion from Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman. The private equity firms will pay $33.25/share, a 30% premium on the stock’s closing price Friday.

3)    Dollar Thrifty (NYSE:DTG) is considering an acquisition bid from Hertz (NYSE:HTZ), which could be increased to $70 per share, according to analysts. The current bid would give Dollar Thrifty investors a 16% return.

4)    Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) agreed Sunday to buy Telmap, an Israeli maker of map software, for an undisclosed price. However, Israeli media are reporting that the deal is worth $300 million to $350 million, according to Reuters.

5)    Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) shares are climbing after Alibaba CEO Jack Ma expressed his interest in buying the company.

6)    AGCO Corp. (NYSE:AGC) has agreed to buy GSI Holdings for $940 million in a deal expected to close by year’s end.

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7)    Barclays (NYSE:BCS) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) are reportedly considering selling their combined 53% stake in apartment company Archstone, worth roughly $2 billion to $3 billion.

8)    ACI Worldwide (ACIQ) has acquired banking software firm S1 (NASDAQ:SONE) at $6.62 per share in cash and 0.1064 shares of ACI stock per S1 share, finally closing a deal that has been in the works since July.

9)    A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts (NASDAQ:ACMR) has agreed to be acquire by an affiliate of arts and craft distributor Sbar for $1.60 a share, a 68% premium on the stock’s closing price yesterday.

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10)    Western Digital (NYSE:WDC) has offered concessions to the EU in hopes of obtaining approval for its proposed $4.3 billion acquisition of Hitachi’s hard drive business. With Seagate’s (NASDAQ:STX) proposed acquisition of Samsung’s hard drive unit, the EU is worried market power will be consolidated in the hands of just two industry giants.

11)    Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) will acquire Gluster, a developer of a software-based platform for building high-performance storage systems using commodity hardware, for $136 million.

12) A Reuters report this morning cited a source as saying EU regulators are set to formally object to the proposed merger of Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX).

13)    IBM (NYSE:IBM) has acquired privately held Q1 Labs for an undisclosed sum as part of IBM’s move to short up the company’s enterprise analytics package for its security intelligence software.

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14)    McGraw-Hill (NYSE:MHP) is selling its nine-station broadcasting group to E.W. Scripps (NYSE:SSP) for $212 million, cashing in on a “non-strategic asset” as its works toward splitting into two “pure play” companies.

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