SAP Snapping Up Concur For $8.3B

Cloud software giant SAP is set to purchase Seattle-based Concur Technologies for $8.3 billion, another deal that rounds out SAP's portfolio of corporate management products and should create new opportunities for the company's channel partners.

Concur offers a SaaS product that manages corporate travel and entertainment expenses. The company also runs TripIt, a popular mobile travel organizer that Concur acquired in 2011.

SAP, Walldorf, Germany, agreed to pay $129 per share for Concur, lifting the value of the company, which earlier Thursday had been trading at approximately $108, by about 20 percent.

Related: SAP Acquisition Expands Cloud App Lineup

An SAP representative told CRN the company can't discuss the deal because it has yet to close.

In a prepared statement, Concur's co-founder and CEO, Steve Singh, said the company expects regulatory approval of the transaction by the end of this year, or the latest by early 2015.

Concur was founded in 1993 and has been public since its IPO in 1998. The software it offers is a cloud-based service, which links to corporate credit cards, manages travel, booking, expense reports, reimbursements and audits.

"The combination of Concur and SAP will bring together the leading cloud-based travel and expense platform with the market-leading enterprise application software company, and we expect this union to drive significant value for our customers," Singh wrote in the company blog.

"This also expands the opportunity to attract developers and partners to the Concur platform, enabling us to continue to extend the capabilities available to you and your business. We expect our focus on innovation and on the success of our customers to be even stronger in the years ahead," he wrote.

’The acquisition of Concur is consistent with our relentless focus on the business network,’ Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP, wrote in a prepared statement.

McDermott said the Concur deal, along with previous acquisitions of Ariba and Fieldglass, represent bold moves to position SAP as the "undisputed business network company."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 18, 2014