SAP acquires disclosure management solutions

SAP has announced that it intends to acquire disclosure management solutions from cundus AG – cundus Financial Statement Factory and cundus information Collector – as well as intellectual property, customer contracts and certain employees. According to SAP, the acquisition will help it extend its market-leading portfolio of finance solutions with a collaborative offering that helps enterprises achieve more cost-effective financial close processes.

SAP will take the new solution to market as part of its EPM solutions from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, while cundus will continue to operate as an independent company delivering strategic business intelligence consulting services in Germany and other European markets, including consulting services for the acquired disclosure management solutions.

Separately priced, the new solution will support customers as part of a complete end-to-end financial close solution for the SAP ERP Financials and SAP BusinessObjects EPM solutions, while also supporting open and heterogeneous non-SAP environments.

The new solution will also incorporate advanced XBRL functionality to support the electronic communication of financial and business data, as mandated by numerous regulators, tax authorities and banks around the world, and will enable users to streamline and automate processes to reduce both compliance risks and costs.

Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, Business Analytics, Line-of-Business and Industry Solutions, SAP, said disclosure management is a natural fit with the SAP solution portfolio.

“It complements our existing performance management and financial close solutions, and addresses a need that we recognise many customers now have.  

“By acquiring this new and highly differentiated solution that has already had success with SAP customers — and by taking it to market alongside our EPM solutions and SAP Business Suite software that already lead the industry — we will further assert our proven leadership in providing robust solutions that help customers address all the demanding needs of the CFO.”

Barbara Lix, member of the Executive Board, cundus AG, said cundus is extremely excited about the deal. 

“SAP leads the market in delivering financial solutions to global enterprises, and cundus looks forward to supporting SAP as it takes the new solutions to market by continuing to provide implementation and consulting services to our joint customers,” said Lix.