Big Blue has added another company to its mammoth list of acquisitions. It has agreed to purchase marketing software form Unica in a cash deal with around $480m.
The price equates to $21 per share or a 120% premium on Thursday’s closing share price. IBM expects the deal to close during the forth quarter of 2010.
IBM said that Unica will improve its portfolio of analytics and predictive technologies, most recently boosted but its acquisition of Coremetrics and Sterling Commerce. Customers should be able to develop more targeted marketing campaigns as a result of the deal, IBM said. Unica’s offerings will sit within IBM’s Software Solutions Group.
"IBM understands the demands on today’s organisations to transform core business processes in functions such as marketing with intelligence and automation," said Craig Hayman, general manager, IBM Industry Solutions. "Unica was a clear choice for IBM based on its power to automate a broad set of marketing capabilities and its established reputation for delivering customer success in marketing to organizations around the world."
Unica is a privately held company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. Its customers include Best Buy, eBay and ING.
"Unica’s focus is to help our customers deliver marketing messages so relevant that they are perceived as a service to our clients’ customers," said Yuchun Lee, CEO, Unica Corp. "Together with IBM, we will bring our leading enterprise marketing management solutions to a wider set of customers worldwide and with a much broader, more comprehensive portfolio."
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IBM’s software head Steve Mills recently spoke exclusively to CBR about Big Blue’s acquisition strategy. Read the full interview here.
