Tibco Software Spikes on Possible SAP Bid

PALO ALTO, Calif. (TheStreet) -- Shares of Tibco Software(TIBX Quote) jumped sharply Monday on a report that German software giant SAP(SAP Quote) is considering a bid to buy the company.

In afternoon trading Monday, Tibco stock was moving at $9.56, up $1.09, or 11%, after spiking as high as $9.64 just after the opening bell. Volume reached more than 8 million shares compared with average daily turnover of about 2 million.

A weekly German business magazine, Wirtschaftswoche, published the report over the weekend, citing anonymous sources.

SAP executives said earlier in the year that they had as much as 5 billion euros set aside for possible acquisitions.

Tibco, a middleware maker, took in revenue of about $623 million over the last 12 months, posting a tripling in profit in its most-recent quarter, mostly due to aggressive cost cutting. The company is among those in the enterprise computing space aiming to replace hardware-heavy databases with so-called "cloud-based" software models.

SAP's American Depositary Receipts were trading at $47.18, down 21 cents.

-- Reported by Scott Eden in New York