UPDATE 2-EQT to acquire digital consultancy firm Perficient for about $3 billion

(Adds details on premium in paragraph 2, background in paragraph 5)

May 5 (Reuters) - Swedish private equity firm EQT AB will acquire Perficient in all-cash deal valued at about $3 billion that will take the U.S.-based digital consultancy firm private, the companies said on Sunday.

EQT will pay $76 for each Perficient share, the companies said in a statement, representing a nearly 58% premium to Perficient's last close on Friday. The deal has been unanimously approved by St. Louis-based Perficient's board and is expected to close by the end of 2024, according to the statement.

Perficient's shares will no longer trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange after the deal closes, the companies said.

Tom Hogan will continue as chief executive of Perficient, which has more 40 global locations, the statement said.

Perficient has operations spanning the United States, Latin America, Europe and India, and has built about 300 Fortune 1000 client relationships, including with Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc's AWS and Alphabet's Google, according to the company's website.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jyoti Narayan; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Will Dunham)