Reuters – IBM said on Monday that it would buy Canadian business intelligence software company Cognos Inc for $5 billion, following a wave of acquisitions in the industry.

Investors had expected the deal, which represents a 9.5 percent premium to Cognos’s closing U.S. share price on Friday, after SAP Ags‘s offer for rival Business Objects in October and Oracle Corp‘s (ORCL.O) purchase of Hyperion Solutions Corp earlier this year.

All three targets make software that analyzes businesses by combing through vast amounts of data.

International Business Machines Corp said it had signed a definitive agreement to buy Cognos for $58 a share, compared with its Friday Nasdaq close of $52.98. The shares rose to $57 in premarket trading on Monday.

IBM said the all-cash deal was subject to shareholder approval and should close in the first quarter of 2008.

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