SAP’s New CEO Makes U-Turn on Biggest Purchase With Plan for IPO
- German parent will maintain majority stake in listed company
- Qualtrics has ‘all the ingredients’ of a successful IPO: Klein
This article is for subscribers only.
SAP SE plans to list its Qualtrics software unit less than two years after buying the company for a record sum, a surprise about-face that signals a strategic shift under new Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein.
SAP will keep a majority in the business after the U.S. listing, which in turn will make Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith the biggest single shareholder, the company said late Sunday. An IPO could value Qualtrics, which measures and generates reports on customer and employee satisfaction, at as much as 16 billion euros ($18.7 billion), according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysis, more than twice what SAP agreed to pay in late 2018 in its biggest-ever acquisition.