No Bidding War for Concur as SAP Made the Only Acquisition Offer
Photo Credit: Concur's TripIt mobile app. Concur Technologies
Skift Take
What does it mean that there was only one bidder, SAP, for Concur? There are only a handful of companies -- perhaps Oracle, IBM, the Priceline Group, and American Express -- that have both the resources to pay more than $8 billion for an acquisition and have an interest in making a business out of travel technology for corporations. In addition, Concur still has plenty of skeptics.
There was no behind-the scenes bidding war for the acquisition of Concur as SAP, which plans to acquire Concur for $129 per share, or $8.3 billion, was the sole bidder.
Concur, which provides SaaS travel booking and expense solutions for corporations, details the run-up to the September 18, 2014, acquisition announcement in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing here.
Initial contacts about an SAP strategic transaction with Concur began in March 2012 and ended two months later without reaching the due diligence stage, Concur states.
Two years later, on May 20, 2014, Arlen Shenkmen, SAP's head of corporate development, contacted Concur CEO Steve Singh and the process, which began with discourse of a non-confidential nature between the two parties, heated up on July 22, 2014, when SAP CEO Bill McDermott phoned Singh "to discuss SAP’s interest in making a proposal regarding an acquisition of Concur," the company states.
On July 23, SAP made its initial offer of $110 per
