Pegasystems buys Chordiant for $161.5 million

Pegasystems, business process management software company, said Monday it will acquire Chordiant Software in a deal valued at $161.5 million, or $5 a share.

Chordiant is a customer relationship management software player.

With the deal, Pegasystems gets access to Chordiant's maintenance revenue stream. Chordiant reported revenue of $76.3 million for the 12 months ended Dec. 31 and had $52.3 million in cash and equivalents.

Pegasystems has turned itself into one of the leading business process management players and is one of the few larger independents left standing. Pegasystems' software aims to automate common business processes.  IBM picked up Lombardi in December and Progress Software acquired Savvion earlier this year.

The plan for Pegasystems is to take Chordiant's customer base, bulk up and create joint applications. In a statement, Pegasystems said the Chordiant deal will add about 3 cents a share to its 2010 earnings and 20 cents a share to the 2011 results.

Here's a look at Pegasystems 2009 box score:

And the outlook for 2010, which will be revised.