If you sell an SAP consultancy, your buyer will almost certainly be another services business: a global integrator, a private-equity-backed roll-up, or a listed SAP specialist. We counted 369 acquisitions of SAP-focused firms between 2015 and 2025, and unlike most partner markets this one has real serial buyers, led by NTT DATA at around 23 purchases. SAP sits deepest in the maturity phase of the partner ecosystem lifecycle we map: the specialists exist in numbers, and fit sets the price.
The engine behind the buying is a deadline. The whole installed base is being pushed toward S/4HANA and RISE with SAP, with mainstream maintenance for the older ECC suite ending in 2027, and certified S/4HANA consultants are scarce and slow to train. By late 2024 fewer than half of the ECC base had moved, leaving thousands of migrations to finish before support runs out, so buying a firm that already has a certified team is the fastest way to add capacity. That is what the buyers pay for: certified S/4HANA and cloud consultants, RISE-aligned delivery, industry templates, and recurring application-management relationships.
The Most Active Acquirers
The type and ownership column matters: a global integrator, a sponsor-backed roll-up, and a founder-owned platform run very different processes and pay for different things.
| # | Acquirer | SAP acquisitions | Type and ownership |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  NTT DATA (incl. itelligence) |
23 | Global integrator; wholly owned subsidiary of NTT, which is listed in Tokyo |
| 2 |  Deloitte |
12 | Big Four |
| 3 |  Accenture |
11 | Global integrator; listed |
| 4 |  SNP |
9 | Listed (Frankfurt); Carlyle-controlled from 2025 |
| 5 |  Valantic |
8 | PE-backed (DPE, since 2019) |
| 6 |  SoftwareOne |
7 | Listed (SIX); software/cloud reseller |
| 7 |  All for One Group |
7 | Listed (Frankfurt), anchor-controlled |
| 8 |  SOA People |
7 | Founder-owned (debt-funded) |
| 9 | Ameri100 (formerly AMERI Holdings) | 7 | Historical US roll-up; not a live buyer |
| 10 |  Pearl Group |
6 | PE-backed (Norvestor, since 2020) |
Ameri100, formerly the SAP business of the listed AMERI Holdings, earned its row on volume in the first half of the period, and it is a historical roll-up rather than a buyer you can sell to today; the note below explains.
Deal Volume, 2015 to 2025
Volume ran steadily through the decade, peaked at 53 deals in 2021, and has held at 28 to 41 a year since. The typical deal is a founder-owned regional SAP consultancy of a few dozen to a few hundred consultants, folded into a larger platform, and the market centers on the German-speaking world, as you would expect for a German software vendor. The named buyers at the top drive a meaningful share of the volume, and behind them sits a long tail of firms that bought once.
The Four Kinds of Buyer
Four kinds of buyer account for almost all of the 369 deals.
Independent and regional SAP specialists are the largest group, at just over half of all deals. These are consultancies and resellers whose business is SAP, buying a peer to add scale, a capability or a new country.
Global integrators and the Big Four take roughly a fifth. NTT DATA, Accenture, Deloitte and KPMG bolt SAP businesses onto a global delivery network, and they are the buyers most likely to run a structured, competitive process.
Private equity firms and their platforms take about a sixth, with the fund more often funding a consolidation platform such as Valantic or Pearl Group than buying directly.
Software and product vendors take the last tenth. Product companies in SAP data management, tax and compliance, security and process automation, among them Precisely, Serrala, Pathlock and SecurityBridge, buy smaller SAP add-on makers to widen their own range.
Global Integrators
NTT DATA (including itelligence)
Overview: NTT DATA is a global IT services group and a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT, which is itself listed in Tokyo. NTT completed the take-private of NTT DATA Group Corporation in 2025 and the shares were delisted, so NTT DATA now sits wholly inside its listed parent. It buys SAP firms almost entirely through NTT DATA Business Solutions, its global SAP business, which is headquartered in Germany, was formerly known as itelligence, operates in around 30 countries and is one of the largest SAP partners in the world, delivering implementation, hosting and managed services. It is a global buyer with a German headquarters: sellers in the UK, the US and the Nordics are as much in scope as sellers in the DACH region.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 23 SAP-partner acquisitions across the decade, a steady cadence from the EVRY SAP unit and ACA’s SAP business in 2015 through to Brazil in 2025.
Typical target: It buys founder-owned SAP consultancies and country specialists, retained and rebranded, spanning Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Sybit (Germany, SAP customer experience, 2018), Natuvion (Germany, S/4HANA data migration, 2022), and Sapphire Systems (UK, 2023), bought from Horizon Capital and Souter Investments, a sponsor-owned seller.
Accenture
Overview: Accenture is the world’s largest listed IT services and consulting firm and operates one of the biggest SAP units in the market. Its SAP acquisitions are relatively few but tend to be sizeable, usually established regional consultancies with strong S/4HANA and industry track records.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 11 SAP-partner acquisitions, relatively few but typically sizeable.
Typical target: It buys regional SAP consultancies with strong S/4HANA and industry track records.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Camelot Management Consultants (Germany, reported at roughly EUR140m, 2024), SKS Group (Germany, banking S/4HANA, 2023), and Edenhouse Solutions (UK, 2021).
The Big Four
Deloitte
Overview: Deloitte is one of the Big Four professional-services firms, and its consulting arm runs a large global SAP business spanning S/4HANA, supply chain and SAP Ariba. Its SAP acquisitions typically add a regional team or a specific capability to that offering.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 12 SAP-partner acquisitions, steady from 2016 and continuing into 2025.
Typical target: It buys SAP units and mid-sized consultancies that add regional reach or S/4HANA, supply-chain and Ariba depth.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Keytree (UK, 2020), AEPEX Business Consultants (Netherlands, 2018), and the SAP Ariba specialist Aptys Consulting (Belgium, 2021).
KPMG
Overview: KPMG is one of the Big Four professional-services firms and runs an SAP team inside its consulting arm, using small acquisitions to add SAP delivery capacity in individual European markets.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 4 SAP-partner acquisitions between 2018 and 2025.
Typical target: It buys country-level SAP consultancies in continental Europe.
Select transactions: Its purchases include CONOGY (Germany, 2018), SIAB Business Solutions (Austria, 2020), and Censio (France, 2023).
EY and PwC have been far less active in SAP services M&A: EY made two SAP-partner acquisitions in the period (2020 and 2021) and PwC one (2024).
Private-Equity-Backed Platforms
Valantic
Overview: Valantic is a German digital and SAP services group backed by DPE Deutsche Private Equity, which took a majority stake in 2019 and added further growth capital in 2022. It is now one of the larger SAP consolidators in the DACH region and southern Europe.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 8 SAP-partner acquisitions from 2019 to 2025.
Typical target: It buys German-speaking and southern European SAP specialists, including industry and asset-management niches.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Orianda Solutions (Switzerland, SAP EAM, 2023), ComSol (Germany, retail S/4HANA, 2022), and Circle Unlimited (Germany, 2020).
Pearl Group
Overview: Pearl Group is a Nordic and Baltic SAP services platform backed by the private equity firm Norvestor, which took a majority stake in 2020. It has assembled the group country by country across the region.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 6 SAP-partner acquisitions from 2021 onward.
Typical target: It buys Nordic and Baltic SAP consultancies, often whole firms and sometimes the SAP units of broader groups.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Applicon and Origo’s SAP business in Iceland (2024), Cross Application Consulting (Norway, 2023), and the SAP consulting business of Epical (Finland, 2023).
Listed and Independent SAP Specialists
SNP
Overview: SNP is a listed SAP transformation specialist. Most of its revenue is professional services (consulting on data migrations, carve-outs and S/4HANA moves): in 2024 the services segment was around two-thirds of its roughly EUR 254m revenue, with its own CrystalBridge software the smaller but faster-growing part. It did most of its buying while listed and independent in Frankfurt, acquiring smaller specialists to add migration and implementation people around its software. Carlyle took control in 2025, through a public tender offer agreed in December 2024 with the stated intention to take the company private.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 9 SAP-partner acquisitions, front-loaded in 2015-2017 with further deals through 2024.
Typical target: It buys SAP data, transformation and implementation specialists.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Datavard (Germany, EUR 29.6m, 2021), Trigon Consulting (Germany, S/4HANA, 2024), and Business Consulting Center / BCC (Poland, 2017).
SoftwareOne
Overview: SoftwareOne is a Swiss-headquartered software and cloud reseller listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. It runs a dedicated SAP business focused on running SAP on the major public clouds and on HANA, built largely through a burst of acquisitions in 2021. It remained independent through a 2023-24 take-private approach and later merged with Crayon.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 7 SAP-partner acquisitions, most in a single 2021 wave with a further deal in 2024.
Typical target: It buys SAP-on-cloud and HANA managed-services firms across several regions.
Select transactions: Its purchases include Centiq (UK, 2021), Novis Euforia (Spain, S/4HANA migration, 2024), and BNW Consulting (Australia, 2019).
All for One Group
Overview: All for One Group is a listed German SAP partner (Frankfurt Prime Standard) and one of the largest in the DACH region, anchor-controlled by Austria’s Unternehmens Invest group. Its business covers SAP ERP and SuccessFactors alongside adjacent enterprise software.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 7 SAP-partner acquisitions across the period.
Typical target: It buys DACH SAP consultancies and human-capital and industry specialists.
Select transactions: Its purchases include POET (Germany, 2022), inside Unternehmensberatung (Germany, SAP HCM, 2017), and B4B Solutions (Austria, 2016).
SOA People
Overview: SOA People is a founder-owned, pan-European SAP partner that describes itself as one of the largest privately held SAP specialists in Europe, and it funds its growth with bank debt in place of a private equity sponsor. It is strongest in S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors.
Acquisition pace: It has made around 7 SAP-partner acquisitions across the decade, continuing into 2025.
Typical target: It buys European SAP consultancies and software firms that add country coverage.
Select transactions: Its purchases include 2BM (Denmark, SAP software and consultancy, 2022), Cormeta (Germany, 2017), and KBJ (Poland, 2024).
A Historical Note: Ameri100
Ameri100 ran an early US SAP staffing-and-consulting roll-up, with around seven acquisitions concentrated in 2015-2017 (including Virtuoso, ATCG Solutions and Linear Logics). The deals were small. The listed parent, AMERI Holdings, ceased to be an IT company in 2020, and the SAP business carried on privately as Ameri100. The row earns its place on the volume done in the first half of the period, and it is a historical roll-up, so an SAP consultancy going to market today should build its process around the live buyers instead.
Private Equity in the SAP Market
Private equity backs a large share of SAP consolidation, and the fund is usually a step behind the named buyer. Direct buyouts, where a fund itself acquires the target, are only about one deal in eight, and the sponsors behind them, Main Capital Partners, Mentha Capital, One Equity Partners, Waterland, Egeria and Volpi Capital, are spread out, each holding a small position. Most private-equity money comes in through the platforms it funds instead. Valantic (DPE) and Pearl Group (Norvestor) are sponsor-backed, SNP became sponsor-controlled when Carlyle took over in 2025, and the listed and founder-owned platforms fund their roll-ups with debt. For a seller, a well-run process usually reaches both the trade buyers and the capital backing those platforms. Our note on strategic versus financial buyers explains how the two approaches differ.
What SAP Consultancies Sell For
Most SAP-partner deals keep their price private. Thirty-one transactions disclose a revenue multiple and 15 an EBITDA multiple, and the table below summarizes them, with the samples stated.
SAP-partner valuation multiples in M&A transactions, 2015-2025
| Multiple | Sample (n) | 1st Quartile | Median | 3rd Quartile | Median Deal Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EV/Revenue | 31 | 0.8x | 1.2x | 1.6x | $12M |
| EV/EBITDA | 15 | 6.2x | 7.1x | 13.0x | $12M |
Source: Mergermarket and Aventis Advisors deal database. Disclosed multiples only; most SAP-partner deals have undisclosed valuations. The EBITDA-multiple deals are largely a subset of the revenue-multiple deals, so both rows share a similar median deal size.
The median SAP consultancy changed hands at about 1.2 times revenue and roughly 7 times EBITDA, well below software multiples and consistent with a people-based services model. The spread is wide: the top quartile clears 1.6x revenue and low-to-mid-teens EBITDA, and the largest, most scaled firms go higher still.
What moves a firm within that range is the mix of forward-looking S/4HANA, cloud and Clean Core work versus legacy ECC maintenance, the share of recurring application-management (AMS) revenue, certified-consultant headcount and utilization, and client concentration. Proprietary software or IP pulls the multiple toward the software end, while a book weighted to legacy ECC break-fix pulls it down. Deal size matters too: the larger transactions draw better-capitalized buyers and tend to price higher, as across IT services generally.
A few disclosed deals show the pattern.
- SNP paid EUR 29.6m for Datavard (2021), about 1.7x its EUR 17.6m of revenue and, on SNP’s description, 15 times expected operating profit.
- All for One bought POET (2022) for a base EUR 8.0m, up to EUR 10.0m with an earnout, roughly 1.0x to 1.3x its sales of about EUR 7.9m.
- Pearl Group bought Cross Application Consulting (2023) at a media-estimated 7x EBITDA.
- Wipro bought Rizing for about USD 540m, about 2.8x revenue, one of the biggest SAP consultancies ever sold.
- EPAM bought Neoris for about USD 628m.
- Genstar took Prometheus Group private for over USD 1bn.
Earnouts are common throughout, so headline value and cash at close usually differ. Our IT services valuation multiples report sets these figures in wider context.
Who Buys Next
Past acquisitions give us the buyer map, and in this market the map is deep. The names below are a different exercise, our judgment about who still has a reason to act, and it rests on four signals: the pace of a buyer’s recent deals, the date its sponsor invested, the plans it has stated, and the capabilities it still lacks.
Seven buyers and one wider pool show those signals in mid-2026.
| Buyer | Why next | What they would buy |
|---|---|---|
| NTT DATA | Around 23 purchases at a steady cadence, reaching Brazil in 2025 | Founder-owned SAP consultancies and country specialists |
| Deloitte | Steady purchases from 2016, continuing into 2025 | Mid-sized consultancies with S/4HANA, supply-chain and Ariba depth |
| Accenture | SKS Group in 2023 and Camelot in 2024 | Regional SAP consultancies with strong S/4HANA track records |
| Valantic | Eight purchases under DPE between 2019 and 2025 | German-speaking and southern European SAP specialists |
| Pearl Group | Six purchases under Norvestor since 2021, assembled country by country | Nordic and Baltic SAP consultancies |
| SOA People | Seven purchases across the decade, continuing into 2025 | European SAP consultancies that add country coverage |
| SNP | Carlyle in control since 2025, after deals through 2024 | SAP data, transformation and implementation specialists |
| Integrators short of certified S/4HANA capacity | Under half the ECC base moved by late 2024, with mainstream maintenance ending in 2027 | Firms with certified S/4HANA teams and RISE-aligned delivery |
The list is up to date as of the time of writing.
What This Means for Sellers
The buyers best positioned to pay are the specialists and platforms with an SAP arm ready to receive an acquisition. What they pay up for is specific: certified S/4HANA and BTP (Business Technology Platform) consultant headcount, the mix of forward-looking S/4HANA, cloud and Clean Core work versus legacy ECC maintenance, the share of recurring AMS revenue, alignment with the RISE and GROW with SAP delivery models, early SAP Business AI (Joule) capability, healthy utilization, low consultant attrition, and a defensible industry or line-of-business niche (for example SuccessFactors, Ariba, or an industry cloud). A firm heavy on legacy ECC break-fix will be valued very differently from one with a growing S/4HANA and managed-services book.
The strategic choice for a seller is between a global integrator (scale, brand, cross-sell, but your team folded into a much larger organization) and a sponsor-backed or founder-led platform (more continuity and upside, but you are one of several bolt-ons). Because the buyer field is so fragmented, a well-run process that puts several of these acquirers in competition is the single biggest lever on price. Our guide on how to sell an IT services business walks through the process.
Deal structure matters as much as the headline multiple. Acquisitions of founder-led SAP firms are usually majority deals with a meaningful part of the value deferred through an earnout, typically over two to three years and tied to the retention of your senior consultants and the delivery of the pipeline, so how those targets are defined can matter more than the multiple itself. A sponsor-backed platform will often let you roll part of your proceeds into the larger group and take a second bite when it is next sold, while a global integrator more often buys you outright and integrates the team. The right structure depends on whether you want a clean exit or another few years of upside.
Thinking about selling your SAP consultancy?
Aventis Advisors advises IT services and software founders on M&A. We help you understand which consolidators and sponsors are the realistic buyers, position the business, and run a competitive process. Talk to our team.
Method and Sources
Figures cover 369 announced acquisitions of SAP-focused firms from 2015 to 2025, with corporate families consolidated, itelligence under NTT DATA for example. We treat an SAP partner as a consultancy, implementation partner, reseller, managed-service provider or ISV whose business is built on SAP. Counts combine our deal database with a verification pass against each acquirer’s public announcements, and an acquisition that failed confirmation against every source was excluded. Most transactions keep their valuations private, and the multiples above rest on the 31 and 15 deals that disclosed. The Who Buys Next section is our judgment from the signals named there, not a count from the database, and it is up to date as of the time of writing.
About Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisory firm focused on technology and IT services companies. We advise founders and owners on company sales, growth capital, and strategic transactions, combining sector focus with proprietary deal data such as the database behind this article. Our research on how software partner ecosystems consolidate puts this market in its wider cycle. To discuss your options, get in touch.
