SAP finance chief says could look at big acquisitions again - report

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German business software maker SAP could start looking at large acquisition targets again, particularly among cloud computing firms, its finance chief was quoted as saying by weekly Euro am Sonntag.

"We could look at almost any size," SAP's Chief Financial Officer Werner Brandt was quoted as saying. Brandt, who will retire in May, declined to name any potential targets.

SAP on Tuesday pushed back its profit target by two years as it waits for subscription revenue from cloud computing to gather pace and invests more in the business to keep up with a fast-growing market.

Cloud computing helps businesses cut costs by ditching bulky servers for network-based software in their own offices, instead using remote data centres run by technology companies.

 

IBM Markets Intelligence estimates the cloud computing market could be as big as $200 billion by 2020.

SAP entered cloud computing in 2012 after spending $7.7 billion on buying internet-based computing companies Ariba and SuccessFactors. Analysts have said SAP may need more acquisitions to reach its 2017 revenue target of 3-3.5 billion euros for the business.

(Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Hugh Lawson)