CFO of SAP, Europe’s most valuable company, hopes trade war is a ‘wake-up call’ for the continent

Late in March, German software giant SAP caught the world’s attention when it overtook Novo Nordisk and LVMH as the most valuable company in Europe. Ask SAP’s CFO about this novel numerical feat, though, and you’re unlikely to be greeted with much fanfare.

“We might be big in European terms, but frankly, against our most prominent competitors, it’s not the case,” Dominik Asam, CFO of SAP, told Fortune.

Europe’s most valuable company, SAP, barely breaches the top 30 most valuable companies in the world. The group, which sells businesses’ back-end operations, lags well behind other U.S. tech giants.

SAP’s value leapfrogged Novo Nordisk’s, the previous golden child of European markets thanks to its breakthrough weight-loss drugs, in March. LVMH also held the top spot at various times in the last year. SAP’s successful transformation to cloud computing, combined with a boom in AI-related stocks, has helped its market value more than triple since 2022.

Its closest company in Europe in valuation as of April 24 is luxury fashion house Hermès, a fact that brings Asam some amusement.

“I always jokingly say… productivity is competing with beauty for the top spot in Europe,” said Asam.

“But we have to compare ourselves against that kind of peer group, of those enterprise application companies that deliver productivity to enterprises. And there is still a huge opportunity.”

Asam described Europe as a “fragmented market” owing to regulation, which is why he thinks Europe’s most valuable companies aren’t populated by tech companies.

“I am deeply convinced that Europe has to unite more, to simplify, to create a more standardized model, to become a little bit more open to innovation, rather than trying to be the world champion of regulation. And these ingredients have to come into place.”

Asam says SAP is targeting investors across the pond where there are “deeper pockets of capital” but perhaps less awareness of European tech, after arguing “Europe is pretty much maxed out” for valuation growth. SAP has repeatedly breached the 15% cap that one company can make up of Germany’s DAX stock exchange, forcing several rebalances.

“If you look at the market caps of some of these other groups, we just have to convince some investors to diversify a little bit away from them into shares like SAP, and that could give us a nice demand push.” 

Tariffs 

SAP has been aided in its ascent to the mantle of Europe’s most valuable company by a seismic trade war that has hobbled the share prices of consumer-facing brands, including LVMH and to a lesser extent Novo Nordisk.  

Speaking at the company’s Q1 earnings call on Tuesday, SAP CEO Christian Klein said there had been growing interest from clients in the company’s supply chain management systems, which identify the most competitive suppliers across several sectors. 

The group was toasting double-digit revenue growth and 29% growth in its cloud backlog, driving a 10% rise in sales while many European stocks languished under tariff uncertainty.

In a press release alongside earnings, Asam said SAP was approaching the rest of 2025 with “vigilance” amid global economic headwinds but remained optimistic about its current position as companies try to navigate supply chain obstacles.

“AI gives a wonderful opportunity to find solutions for these problems. From that perspective, I'd say we are focused on what we can control, as opposed to catastrophizing about a situation where we don't even know exactly how bad it might get.”

While Asam made it clear he was not in favor of an unraveling trade war, adding that an escalation would “only eat the GDP of the world and reduce productivity,” he did hope it might provide Europe a much-needed shake. 

“While the escalation has certainly not helped, the question is, is there actually also a positive outcome that we can eradicate some of these trade barriers, also some of the regulatory pseudo trade barriers, I'd say that exist in Europe?”

Asam criticized tit-for-tat taxes between the U.S. and Europe, including threats from the French government to target digital services as part of its tariff retaliation against Donald Trump.

“Maybe this kind of trade dispute is a wake-up call for Europe. We hope that at least it is for Europe to say we have to change the game. Because there's so much great technology in Europe. There are so many companies that can compete effectively, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies by what we do there.

“And in that sense, I think there is some truth to some of the criticism we currently receive from the United States, where we should listen very seriously.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com