SAP Wraps Up Prior Labs Deal and EU Probe, but Stock Edges Toward Yearly Low Ahead of Earnings
Published on 07/18/2026 at 10:33 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SAP’s shares ended last week at €138.50, shedding 1.81% on Friday and leaving the stock within striking distance of its 52-week low of €130.80, a level last touched on June 25. The software giant has now lost 33.53% since the start of the year, and the current price sits just 5.89% above that trough. Two freshly published analyst calls underline the uncertainty surrounding the stock: one sharply cuts the target while the other sees more than double the current value.
Michael Briest of UBS lowered his price objective from €205.00 to €164.00 on July 15, keeping a “Buy” rating. The downgrade reflects mounting complexity in monetising AI agents – a challenge that has become more acute with SAP’s latest acquisition binge. Just two days later, Morningstar’s Rob Hales reaffirmed his fair-value estimate of €265.00 and kept a “Buy” rating, though he cautioned that geopolitical tensions around Iran and high energy costs could weigh on enterprise IT budgets. The two assessments, issued within the same week, illustrate the widening disagreement over SAP’s growth trajectory.
The company has not been idle. On July 14, SAP announced the legal completion of its takeover of Prior Labs, a Freiburg-based specialist in so-called tabular foundation models. Over the next four years, the group plans to channel more than €1 billion into the team. That deal followed hot on the heels of the July 6 closure of the Dremio acquisition, a data-platform purchase designed to weave third-party data into SAP’s own AI environment more swiftly. Together, the two transactions represent a hefty bet on cloud and AI infrastructure, even as the market frets about when those investments will translate into measurable revenue.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SAP?
Regulatory relief arrived from Brussels earlier this month. The European Commission formally ended its antitrust investigation into SAP’s maintenance and support practices for on-premise software. The company avoided a potential fine by making binding commitments – among them a ten-year pledge to waive reactivation fees for legacy installations. On the same day, July 9, SAP released its monthly batch of security updates: 16 patches, including three critical fixes for vulnerabilities in NetWeaver, Commerce Cloud and AppRouter.
Technically, the stock is showing signs of weakness. It currently trades 4.30% below its 50-day moving average of €144.72, a signal that the short-term trend remains negative even as the share price hovers near its annual nadir.
Investors now have their eyes fixed on July 23, when SAP reports results for the second quarter and first half of 2026 after the market closes, around 22:05 MESZ. The analyst conference call is scheduled for 23:00 MESZ. Consensus forecasts point to cloud order backlog growth of roughly 22% – a figure that could either vindicate UBS’s caution or bolster Morningstar’s conviction. For context, the annual general meeting in May already approved a dividend of €2.50 per share for the 2025 financial year, which has been paid out. The key question now is whether the upcoming numbers can narrow the gap between sceptical target cuts and optimistic fair-value estimates, or whether the stock will test its yearly floor once more.
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