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SAP welcomes Elliott's $1.3B investment

24 April 2019 19:43 (UTC +04:00)

U.S. activist investor Elliott revealed a 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion) stake in SAP on Wednesday and said it supported a new management efficiency drive, sending shares in the German business software company to a record high, ONA reports citing Reuters.

SAP has until now escaped the attention of activist investors, steered by co-founder and Chairman Hasso Plattner who has withstood tough competition from U.S. rivals and is still the biggest shareholder in the German company with 6.5 percent.Yet SAP has never achieved the 40 percent profit margins that Microsoft boasted at its height. It reported an adjusted operating margin of 24 percent for the first quarter as it grapples with a catch-up transition to cloud computing.

Europe’s most valuable technology company now wants to expand adjusted operating margins by a total of 5 percentage points through 2023.