International Business Machines Corp (IBM) said it will buy marketing software firmUnica Corp for about $480 million in cash to expand its portfolio of business software and technology services.
IBM, which recently said it would buy more companies to shift further into software and services, would pay around $21 per Unica share, a premium of around 120 per cent from Thursday's close of $9.55. Unica shares jumped to $20.81 in pre-market trade.
IBM said Unica will boost its ability to help companies analyze and predict customers' behaviour and develop more targeted marketing. Unica's 500 employees will be integrated into IBM's software solutions group, it said.
IBM has said it plans to spend $20 billion on acquisitions over the next five years to expand into higher-margin businesses and away from increasingly commoditised hardware sales.
It has announced a series of acquisitions in the past few months, including one for an undisclosed sum earlier this week of privately-held Datacap, which helps companies digitize paper documents.
In late May, it said it would pay $1.4 billion for Sterling Commerce, which specializes in secure transfers of electronic documents like payroll and healthcare claims.
The buying spree comes as rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Oracle Corp andDell have also been scouring for deals as they compete to offer a more comprehensive set of products and services.
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