The German software giant is spinning off its listed customer experience management subsidiary Qualtrics as part of its restructuring. The deal, made with two investment funds, values the company at $12.5 billion.

SAP, which announced a restructuring in January involving a refocusing on the cloud and the elimination of 3000 jobs, has reached an agreement with the American fund Silver Lake and the Canadian pension fund CPP to sell Qualtrics. This subsidiary specialising in customer experience management had been floated on the stock exchange in 2021. The two investment funds are buying SAP's shares in Qualtrics for 7.7 billion dollars in cash. Silver Lake was already a shareholder. The transaction should be finalised in the second half of this year.

A subsidiary that was losing money

SAP had acquired the American Qualtrics in 2018 for $8 billion. The German software giant says the sale values Qualtrics at $12.5 billion in total. At the buyout price of $18.15 per share, this represents a 73% premium to the average price over the past 30 days. At the time of its IPO, it was valued at $27 billion.

"Silver Lake has both the operational expertise and the track record in software companies to help Qualtrics extend its leadership in the experience management category, which it pioneered," said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, in a statement. He added that SAP will remain a privileged partner of the company.

Qualtrics now has 18,000 customers, compared to 10,000 at the time of the SAP acquisition. At the end of January, the company reported a 36% year-on-year increase in turnover, but lost more than a billion dollars over the year.