Investment management company Vulcan Value Partners recently released its first-quarter 2026 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. The firm focuses on improving long-term returns and lowering risk over short-term results. In the quarter, the Large Cap Composite (Net) returned -14.1%, the Small Cap Composite (Net) returned -6.8%, the Focus Composite (Net) returned -19.1%, the Focus Plus Composite (Net) returned -19.1% as well as the All-Cap Composite (Net) returned -13.5%. Throughout 2025 and escalating to the first quarter of 2026, the market is experiencing heightened volatility related to AI’s potential, leading to mispricing of some strong companies. The current market turbulence presents opportunities for long-term investors willing to accept short-term volatility in stable-valued companies and improve the margin of safety. The letter identified businesses into three groups with perceived /real AI disruption risk: Software, Alternative Asset Managers, and indirectly impacted businesses. The firm highlights that its investment strategy aims to leverage this volatility to reduce risk and increase returns in the long term. In addition, please check the Firm’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2026.
In its first-quarter 2026 investor letter, Vulcan Value Partners highlighted SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) as a newly acquired position. Headquartered in Walldorf, Germany, SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is a leading enterprise application and business solutions provider. On April 21, 2026, SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) stock closed at $176.44 per share. One-month return of SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) was 3.19%, and its shares lost 35.78% over the past 52 weeks. SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) has a market capitalization of $207.48 billion.
Vulcan Value Partners stated the following regarding SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) in its Q1 2026 investor letter:
“We purchased two new positions during the quarter: SAP SE and ServiceNow, Inc. SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is the global leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, which serves as the operating system for many of the world’s largest companies. SAP’s software manages many functions across an organization, including financial accounting, supply chains, customer relationships, human capital, and procurement. SAP and Oracle dominate the global ERP market. We have owned both businesses in the past and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to own SAP again with a substantial margin of safety.
We believe SAP is one of the best businesses in the world. They have over 425,000 customers, including 98 of the 100 largest companies globally. SAP’s ERP solutions often have decades of embedded data, business processes, and software customizations. It is extremely rare for companies to switch ERP vendors due to the cost, time, and disruption risk that switching creates, particularly for large, global enterprises that make up SAP’s core customer base…” (Click here to read the full text)
SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) is not on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026. According to our database, 36 hedge fund portfolios held SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) at the end of the fourth quarter, up from 34 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.
In another article, we covered SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) and shared the list of best European stocks to buy according to analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2026 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
