SAP to buy Callidus Software in $2.4bn deal

German software company SAP has agreed to buy cloud-based human resources software group Callidus Software, which trades as CallidusCloud, for a total enterprise value of $2.4bn through its SAP America unit.

Callidus is the global leader in cloud-based sales, marketing, learning, and customer experience solutions.

Under the terms of the deal, which has been unanimously approved by the board of directors of Callidus, SAP will pay $36.00 for each Callidus share. The transaction, due to close in the second quarter of this year, is expected to be essentially neutral to SAP’s non-IFRS earnings per share for fiscal 2018 and accretive to SAP’s non-IFRS earnings per share for fiscal 2019.

SAP said the deal gives it immediate leadership in the “lead to money” space that includes sales performance management and configure-price-quote.

Chief executive officer Bill McDermott said: “SAP is connecting the back office to the front office in this consumer-driven growth revolution. Our customers are focused on reinventing sales, service, marketing, and commerce. The addition of CallidusCloud aligns perfectly to SAP’s innovation strategy to transform the front office. SAP gives CallidusCloud the global scale to accelerate its already impressive growth. These two strong companies will be better together, help the world run better and improve people’s lives.”

Morgan Stanley said: We think the Callidus acquisition looks interesting as it helps to fill out SAP's customer engagement commerce platform, but we think it likely means share buybacks are pushed back.”

At 1315 GMT, SAP shares were down 0.7% to €91.42.