SAP to acquire Business Objects for €4.8bn
SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) and Business Objects S.A. (Nasdaq:BOBJ) (Euronext Paris ISIN code: FR0004026250 - BOB) today announced that the companies have reached an agreement that will bring together two of the information technology industry's leaders, resulting in an unmatched offering for Business Users, enabling timely and accurate decision-making.
Under the terms and conditions of the tender offer agreement, SAP will make a cash offer of € 42.00 per ordinary share and for American Depositary Shares (ADS) at the US$ equivalent based on the EUR/US$ exchange rate as of the settlement of the tender offers. The transaction volume taking into account the transaction costs will be slightly above €4.8 billion. The Business Objects board of directors has approved the tender offer agreement between the two companies and anticipates recommending the offer to its shareholders subject to fulfillment of certain regulatory requirements.
Together, SAP and Business Objects intend to offer high-value solutions for process- and business-oriented professionals. The solutions will be designed to enable companies to strengthen decision processes, increase customer value and create sustainable competitive advantage through real-time, multi-dimensional business intelligence. SAP and Business Objects believe that customers will gain significant business benefits through the combination of new, innovative offerings of enterprise-wide business intelligence solutions along with embedded analytics in transactional applications. Additionally, the joint partner ecosystems will be fueled by the industry's most powerful business process platform providing customers with the best enterprise information management platform available for SAP and non-SAP environments.
SAP is the world's leading provider of business software with more than 41,200 customers in more than 120 countries running SAP applications-from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize enterprises to suite offerings for global organizations. A key component of SAP's growth strategy is to significantly increase its revenues from new products including addressing the growing demands of Business Users.
Headquartered in Paris, France Business Objects is widely recognized as the pioneer of the business intelligence (BI) software category. Today, Business Objects is the world's leading BI software company with solutions spanning the information discovery and delivery, information management, analysis and performance management categories for more than 44,000 customers around the globe.
