SAP’s CFO, Europe’s most valuable company, hopes that the trade war is a “wake-up call” for the continent
In late March, German software giant SAP attracted global attention when it surpassed Novo Nordisk and LVMH as Europe’s most valuable company. However, when you ask SAP’s CFO about this novel number feat, you rarely get greeted with many fanfares.
“We may be big in European terms, but frankly, not against our most prominent competitors,” said Dominik Asam, SAP’s CFO. luck.
As Europe’s most valuable company, SAP has little violated the top 30 of the world’s most valuable companies. Groups selling corporate back-end businesses are behind other US tech giants.
The value of SAP jumped over the former golden child of the European market, Novo Nordisk, in March thanks to groundbreaking weight loss pills. LVMH took the top spot at various times last year. Combined with the successful conversion of SAP to cloud computing and the boom in AI-related stocks, it has helped its market value more than triple since 2022.
As of April 24th, the closest company in Europe is the luxury fashion house Hermes. This is a fact that Asam brings some entertainment.
“I’ve always been joking about it… productivity competes with the beauty of the top European spots,” Asam said.
“But we have to compare with such peer groups of corporate application companies that provide productivity to businesses, and there are still great opportunities.”
ASAM describes Europe as a “fragmented market” for regulation, so it believes that Europe’s most valuable companies do not live in high-tech companies.
“I am deeply convinced that rather than trying to become a world champion of regulations, Europe must create more standardized models, create more standardized models, and be a little more open to innovation, rather than trying to become a world champion of regulations.
ASAM says that SAP has a “deeper pocket of capital” after claiming that “Europe is almost the largest,” but is targeting investors beyond ponds where there is a “deeper pocket of capital,” but perhaps less aware of European technology. SAP has repeatedly violated the 15% limit that a company can compensate for the German DAX Stock Exchange, enforcing some rebalancing.
“Looking at the market capitalization of some of these other groups, we need to convince some investors to diversify a little further away from stocks like SAP.
Customs
SAP has been hampering the stock price of consumer brands, including LVMH, and has been promoted in the rise to the mantle of Europe’s most valuable companies, including, but not so, Novo Nordisk.
Speaking on the company’s first quarter revenue call on Tuesday, SAP CEO Christian Klein said interest is growing from clients in the company’s supply chain management system, which identifies the most competitive suppliers in several sectors.
The group toasted double-digit revenue growth and 29% growth in the cloud backlog, with sales rising 10%, but many European stocks suffered under tariff uncertainty.
in press release In addition to revenue, ASAM said SAP is approaching “alert” for the rest of 2025, but remained optimistic about its current position as businesses seek to navigate supply chain obstacles amid global economic headwinds.
“AI gives us a great opportunity to find solutions to these problems. From that perspective, I think we’re focusing on what we have control over, as opposed to the tragedy of situations where we don’t know exactly how bad it will be.”
Asam revealed he was not in favor of a trade war that he didn’t unravel, but added that the escalation would “eat global GDP and reduce productivity,” but he hoped it would provide Europe with much needed shaking.
“The escalation certainly isn’t aid, but the question is that there are also positive consequences that some of these trade barriers, some of the regulatory pseudo-trade barriers, can actually be eradicated?
ASAM criticised taxes between the US and Europe, including threats from the French government to target digital services as part of tariff retaliation against Donald Trump.
“Maybe this kind of trade dispute is a call for Europe’s awakening, and I hope that at least Europe has to change the game, because there are so many great technologies in Europe.
“And in that sense, I think we should listen very seriously to some of the criticism we are currently receiving from the US.”
This story was originally introduced Fortune.com