SAP shares rose over 9% on Friday as stronger-than-expected third quarter results showed revenue up 13% and cloud revenue in particular jumping 37% – a positive announcement followed the next day with CEO Bill McDermott, 58, announcing he was not going to renew his contract with co-CEO’s Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein taking over straight away.
https://www.sap.com/docs/download/investors/2019/sap-2019-q3-preannouncement.pdf
https://news.sap.com/2019/10/sap-set-course-future-next-generation-leadership/
Highlights:
- SAP S/4HANA now over 12,000 customers
- Operating profit up 36%
- “Ambition 2020” predicts more (70-75%) predictable revenue i.e. cloud plus software support
- 2020 revenue projected at ~€29bn
- McDermott remaining in an advisory capacity until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition
- Plan seems to have been shaped with Hasso Plattner over a year ago and been smoothly managed
- McDermott served as CEO for a decade seeing dramatic growth for SAP, particularly expanding its portfolio and initiating a major shift to cloud
- Morgan and Klein are both already Executive Board members
- Morgan, who joined SAP in 2004, was president of the Cloud Business Group, overseeing Qualtrics, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Customer Experience and SAP Concur
- Klein, who started his career at SAP two decades ago as a student, most recently served as the company’s chief operating officer, also overseeing product development for the flagship ERP solution SAP S/4HANA®. Previously, he worked as SAP SuccessFactors chief financial officer and as SAP chief controlling officer
