By Ryan Vlastelica
NEW YORK (Reuters) - DreamWorks Animation SKG and Athlon Energy were among the biggest movers in the premarket session on Monday, with both names rallying on deal news.
Shares of DreamWorks soared after a person with knowledge of the situation said Japan's SoftBank Corp was in talks to buy the company. The talks were first reported by the Hollywood Reporter, which quoted an unidentified source as saying a buyout would value DreamWorks at $3.4 billion.
The film studio's share price surged 23 percent to $27.50 and was one of the Nasdaq's most active premarket names. If the scale of the rally holds, it will be the biggest one-day advance for the stock since April 2009. Despite that, the rally will not be enough to push the stock into positive territory for the year; it is down 37 percent in 2014.
On the New York Stock Exchange, Athlon jumped 24.5 percent to $58.18 after Encana Corp agreed to buy the company for $5.93 billion in cash.
Athlon is on track to have its biggest one-day advance in its history, and the stock has been a strong performer this year, up almost 55 percent.
(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Chizu Nomiyama)
