MICROSOFT BUYING SPEECH RECOGNITION FIRM NUANCE IN $16B DEAL

Microsoft, on an accelerated growth push, is buying speech recognition company Nuance in a deal worth about $16 billion.

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The acquisition will get Microsoft deeper into hospitals and the health care industry through Nuance’s widely used medical dictation and transcription tools.

Microsoft will pay $56 per share cash. That’s a 23% premium to Nuance’s Friday closing price. The companies value the transaction including debt at $19.7 billion.

Shares of Burlington, Massachusetts-based Nuance surged about 16% in Monday trading.

Nuance has been a pioneer in voice-based artificial intelligence technology and was instrumental in helping to power Apple’s digital assistant Siri. It has since shifted its focus to health care, including a product that listens in on exam room conversations between physicians and patients and automatically writes up the doctor’s recommendations, such as for prescriptions or lab work.

“This clinical documentation essentially writes itself, giving physicians time back to focus on patient care,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on a conference call about the deal.