SAP has 'zero interest' in buying Salesforce.com - CEO

FRANKFURT/WALLDORF (Reuters) - SAP Chief Executive Bill McDermott said his company has "zero interest" in acquiring software rival Salesforce.com.

Bloomberg reported last week that Salesforce was approached by a potential acquirer and that it had hired financial advisors after receiving the offer, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

"We bought always assets that are best-in-class, which are ascending in value," McDermott said in response to a question at a news conference at SAP's annual SAPPHIRE user conference in Florida, which was webcast.

"We have never bought something that was impaired and in decline," he said. "We have zero interest in Salesforce.com."

SAP is battling alongside established U.S. software makers such as Oracle, IBM and Microsoft to boost Internet-based software sales and fend off pure cloud-based rivals Salesforce.com and Workday.

SAP has spent roughly $20 billion on acquisitions in recent years. But it has said its $7.3 billion purchase of travel and expense management software maker Concur, its largest transaction ever, would be the last large merger for the foreseeable future.

Asked whether he could imagine buying Salesforce, McDermott said: "I can't. I would love to give you an answer where that might be possible but it's really not," he said, adding that Salesforce cloud-software had become a commodity.

"SAP has it, Oracle has it. Lots of others have it. That's why we don't want to buy them."

Salesforce has a market capitalization of about $50 billion, just over half of SAP's $94 billion valuation.

(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach in Walldorf and Harro ten Wolde and Eric Auchard in Frankfurt; Editing by Edward Taylor)