In a deal that will bring together the Marlboro cigarette and Skoal moist snuff brands, Altria Group Inc will buy UST Inc, the largest U.S. smokeless tobacco maker, for $10.4 billion, or $69.50 a share, to expand in a growing market. It will also assume about $1.3 billion in debt to acquire UST.

The Huntsman v Hexion drama is underway in a Delaware courtroom, and the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal reports that some analysts, desperate for ring-side seats, have gone as far as to hire people to wait in line for them. But the proceedings have otherwise been drab, the blog reports. The hedge fund analysts, and everyone else in the courtroom for that matter, are eager to find out whether Apollo Management-owned Hexion Specialty Chemicals can walk away from its $6.5 billion deal to buy Huntsman because of Huntsman’s financial performance.

Other deals of the day:

** Egyptian telecoms operator Orascom is looking at buying Telekom Austria and has been in touch with the company and the Austrian government, its main shareholder, a newspaper reported on Monday. The deal could be structured as a merger of Orascom and Telekom Austria under which Austria’s government holding company OeIAG would keep a stake in the merged company.

** Australia’s Origin Energy Ltd struck a joint venture deal with U.S.-based ConocoPhillips and promised an extra shareholder payout, a move that could either defeat an $11 billion bid from Britain’s BG Group Plc or force a higher offer. Conoco would contribute up to $8 billion toward a 50-50 joint venture that will develop the massive coal-seam gas (CSG) assets and build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project.