SAP buys cloud travel expense platform Concur

SAP announced today it has agreed to acquire US-based cloud expense management software maker Concur Technologies in an all-share deal valued at US$7.3 billion (A$8.13 billion).

Founded in 1993, Concur transformed itself into a SaaS company by providing online tools and a scan and submit expense management platform to a customer base that has expanded to 23,000 worldwide with annual revenues of US$700 million (A$779.19 million).

SAP released a statement saying that the buy-out recognises a significant cross sell opportunity as the majority of of its customers do not run Concur and only 30 percent of Concur customers currently run SAP.

SAP plans to use the HANA platform combined with Concur’s expansive travel and expense data to provide analytics on corporate business expenses to clients.

The Concur travel platform will be integrated with SAP’s Ariba procurement and supply chain solution and the company’s Fieldglass vendor management system.

In an analyst call held earlier today, SAP CEO Bill McDermott claimed the deal turns the combined entities into the world's second largest cloud company and that SAP’s business network is expected to transact more than US$600 billion (A$667.88 billion) annually, 50 percent more than Amazon, eBay and Alibaba combined.

The Concur board of directors has unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014 or the first quarter 2015, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

SAP said in a statement it would offer US$129 (A$143.59) per share to investors, a 20 percent increase on the previous trading day's closing price.

With Reuters