Based in San Francisco, the company specializes in working capital management and supply chain finance solutions. A purchase price was not mentioned directly. But it is less than $1 billion, said SAP CFO Luka Mucic, pointing out that it was a so-called tuck-in acquisition.
The transaction is expected to close in March. At the end, SAP will hold around 95 percent. The rest lies with Taulia CEO Cedric Bru and JP Morgan. There is also a strategic alliance with the major US bank.
Taulia employs 350 people. There is also a location in Dsseldorf. According to an entry in the company database Factiva, Taulia achieved sales of a good $40 million in 2021, which SAP did not want to confirm.
The company, which has been active since 2009, is currently privately owned; Still investors are Trinity Ventures, Matrix Partners and Zouk Capital.
The Taulia platform is used by more than 2 million companies and processes more than $500 billion worth of transactions each year, according to the SAP announcement.
“The acquisition positions us well to become a leader in working capital management,” said Mucic. Taulia strengthens the SAP portfolio and helps companies achieve financial flexibility and stability and make supply chains more resilient.
The market for working capital management has shown strong growth, SAP explains the transaction. Taulia has established a network of financial partners that provide the necessary financing, including JP Morgan and Unicredit. These covered the time between quick supplier payments and later settlement of invoices by buyers within the payment period.
According to the Walldorf-based software company, more than 80 percent of the Taulia customer base work on SAP systems for corporate management (ERP). There is already a partnership between the two sides with the integration of Taulia in SAP solutions. SAP also referred to the goal of expanding the range of financial services for banks and insurance companies and integrating them into their own offerings. SAP Fioneer, the joint venture for the SAP sector with the holding company Dediq, should play an important role here.
SAP wants to accelerate cloud growth – high cash flow
SAP wants to noticeably accelerate growth in the cloud business in the current year in order to make further progress on the way to the 2025 financial goals. The plans for 2022 and the key figures for the past year, which the software group had already published two weeks ago, were confirmed.
SAP has specified the information on cash flow for 2021: operationally, it was 6.21 billion euros and thus above the guidance of around 6 billion; likewise the free cash flow at 5.01 (guidance: more than 4.5) billion euros. For the current year, SAP calculates free cash flow of more than 4.5 billion euros.
The high investments in the cloud expansion as well as the additional expenditure for personnel – the number of employees increased by around 5 percent in 2021 to a good 107,000 – should be reflected in an operating result that will then increase again at double-digit rates from 2023, as CFO Luka Mucic confirmed.
Here SAP had recorded a decline of 1 percent in 2021 (based on the non-IFRS figures). At best, the operating result is expected to stagnate this year, but it could also fall by up to 5 percent. It is expected to be in a range of 7.8 to 8.25 billion euros after 8.23 billion in 2021.
According to group planning, the high-margin license business will continue to decline, in 2021 the minus was 11 percent. However, according to the management, this will be more than compensated for by the increase in the number of cloud users.
Before the XETRA start on Tradegate, the SAP share certificates fell by 1.4 percent at times.
By Hans Joachim Koch
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