, Germany-based SAP plunked down $8 billion in cash, much of it secured through financing, to buy Qualtrics in a deal that formally closed in January 2019.At a price of about 20x its expected revenue in 2018 of about $400 million, the acquisition was unusually splashy for SAP; the CEO behind the deal, Bill McDermott announced his departure a few months later, insisting it was unrelated to activist investor Elliot Management taking a 1% stake in the company in the interim.
But as businesses sell more online and need to track customers and employees remotely, SAP’s e-commerce units and Qualtrics have proven bright spots, RBC Capital Markets analyst Alex Zukin wrote in a note earlier in July. In recent earnings reports, SAP had touted Qualtrics’ integration into other units such as its human resources software unit, SuccessFactors....
Qualtrics and SAP will hope that an IPO can offer each company the best of both worlds: Qualtrics’ software bolstering SAP business units and its financials through strong market performance, with Qualtrics still benefitting from SAP’s customer base while having more independence to attract and compensate talent, make its own acquisitions, and pursue customers and partners outside the SAP ecosystem.