IT company Atos is almost perpetually in the news, whether it wants to be or not. In this Techzine liveblog, read about the latest developments regarding Atos.
25 November – The French government has bid €500 million for Atos’ Advanced Computing business. This non-binding offer runs until 31 May 2025, when the deal may have been signed. Once this is complete, France will transfer 150 million euros first.
Atos also pledges to sell the BDS business around Mission-Critical Systems and Cybersecurity Products. A formal process will start at an as-yet-unnamed time.
5 November – Atos’ sale of its Worldgrid division to engineering and consulting firm Alten is now final. The division will change hands for 270 million euros. The deal is expected to be complete before the end of the year. The sale already got the European Commission’s blessing in September, and last month, the commercial court in Nanterre also allowed it. The Worldgrid division focuses on the energy and utilities sectors and employs 1,100 people. Last year, the unit had a revenue of 170 million euros.
November 1 – The French parliament has adopted an amendment in the Finance Committee on Atos’s possible future, which could lead to nationalisation. This news follows last Thursday’s move when the French government made additional capital available for the Atos brand Bull.
Nationalisation, where the state becomes the owner, is usually only done with companies that are in significant financial trouble and that are also crucial to a country, for example, because of employment or technological development. Atos could be eligible for nationalization now that it is in financial trouble and has significant debts. Atos wants to work toward a better future through, among other things, a restructuring.
15 October – Philippe Salle will take over on 1 February from Jean Pierre Mustier, who had been CEO since July. Atos’ top executive post has a curious reputation: the company has lost seven CEOs in about three years.
Atos says that, given its financial restructuring, it started a selection process for a new CEO. This position is to be combined with that of chairman of the board, a role that Salle will assume with immediate effect.
Salle was previously CEO of several companies, including Emeria and Altran Group. He gained experience as chairman at Viridien. As part of the restructuring, Salle himself will invest at least €9 million in Atos.
7 October – The French government still wants to buy strategically relevant parts of Atos. However, the deadline for the deal has passed, requiring a new proposal to be put on the table.
“Atos has offered to continue discussions and has indicated that it has submitted a new proposal to the French State that is compatible with the financial restructuring plan,” Atos said. “The expiry of the offer has no impact on the ongoing financial restructuring.
A new plan should arrive “shortly.” Still, it is yet another delay for ailing Atos, which has already seen several intended deals fall through. Its stock value has plummeted 90 (!) percent this year, while its stock market performance in previous years has already been problematic.
The goal of the French government is to keep important parts of Atos in French hands. The company handles various IT and cybersecurity issues of government institutions, which involve state secrets that France does not want to entrust to a foreign owner.
2 September – Atos expects sales to decline over the next two years due to a deteriorating business environment. As a result, the company anticipates that it will also post lower sales in 2024 than initially thought. Initially assuming sales of €9.8 billion, the company is now counting on €9.7 billion.
Atos notes that the financial projections will not affect its restructuring plans. The court hearing on this will take place in mid-October. Once approved, several sweeping measures, including a share renewal plan, would be implemented between November 2024 and January 2025.
1 August – In the first half of 2024, Atos posted an operating loss of €1.7 billion. By comparison, in the same time last year, the operating loss was €434 million. Several circumstances cause this explosive increase in the loss.
A significant part of the loss comes from non-cash impairment charge, which is a decrease in the value of an asset, for instance because it is likely to become worth less in the future. In addition, costs for marketing activities were high due to major sporting events. Atos sponsors the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games, among others. On the other hand, Atos provides cybersecurity for these major sporting events.
July 24 – Atos is getting a new CEO. Current chairman Jean Pierre Mustier will take over the role from the outgoing Paul Saleh. This makes Mustier the company’s sixth CEO in less than three years. Mustier is taking over with immediate effect.
In addition, the French company reports that a hearing on is expected its accelerated safeguard proceedings will take place on October 15. This will verify if the debt restructuring and other financial arrangements are legally binding. France converted an EU bill into national law in 2021 to allow such processes to be fast-tracked when needed. Atos is now taking advantage of this.
July 15 – Atos has reached a lock-up agreement with banks and bondholders for €1.675 billion of funding. €800 million has been released for an interim period, of which €450 million is already immediately available to Atos. Currently, Atos’ governance will remain unchanged until at least the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025, when the restructuring ends.
July 5 – The French tech company has arranged new funding. Via two tranches, money will become available in the short term to solve some problems. “These additional tranches of €225 million ($243.41 million) and €350 million of revolving credit facility are subject to an amendment of the facilities previously provided by a group of bondholders, which is expected to be signed shortly,” Atos said.
The intention is also to complete another larger restructuring plan. Atos again confirmed reaching a final agreement around this plan later this month is within expectations. It is also working on a €1.5bn deal with banks.
July 1 – Atos’ bondholders and lenders have reached an agreement with the company. 2.9 billion euros of debt will be converted into shares, while 233 million euros will be provided to Atos. 1.68 billion euros of debt remains outstanding, reports Bloomberg. A commercial court has yet to grant approval.
Pending approval, businessman Daniel Kretinsky’s EPEI would be out of the running to take over Atos. That investment group is still the only external option for financing Atos, after Onepoint dropped out last week and several other parties before it. At the moment, it seems Atos would rather hand over power to the current investors than to go into business with another party.
June 26 – Just as it finally seemed clear who would acquire Atos, plans have had to be changed once more. A takeover deal by Onepoint has fallen through. EP Equity Investment (EPEI) of Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky is willing to restart discussions, however. Initially, Atos picked Onepoint over EPEI due to the fact the former wished to keep the company whole under the so-called “One Atos” plan. Now, it remains unclear what the new Atos will look like and whether the company will be split up.
June 21 – Anyone watching the stock market value of Atos in recent days can’t help but spot the remarkable fluctuations that have been happening. On Thursday, Atos shares went up by a staggering 46 percent. Longer-term, however, Atos shares are in danger of becoming virtually worthless. This is because the French IT provider is issuing new shares soon to get rid of some of its significant debt.
This odd shares spike has two causes, as Bloomberg highlights. Short sellers, who gambled that Atos would fall further in value, have cashed in on a wide scale by now. Meanwhile, online investors at Boursorama.com are talking about little else but Atos, swimming against the tide of short sellers and speculating on sharp share price gains. They argue that the IT company’s shares are undervalued. However, unlike previous “meme stock” GameStop, which was given a resurgence by users of the Reddit subforum (i.e. subreddit) WallStreetBets, the short sellers are not getting into trouble. This is because these individuals had typically placed their short bets much earlier, when Atos was still worth a lot more than it is today.
June 14 – The French government is making a €700 million bid for strategically relevant parts of Atos. The so-called BDS business unit is the target. This unit focuses on supercomputers, mission-critical systems and cybersecurity.
France has long argued that this component should remain in French hands. Reiterating that point, France’s finance minister said, “With other companies that can be partners, we’ve taken responsibility to buy Atos’s strategic activities and guarantee that these strategic activities remain under the full or partial control of the State.”
The news seemed to fall right away on the stock market. Atos briefly rose in value by 23 per cent and is still firmly on the rise at the time of writing.
June 11 – Atos chooses Onepoint’s consortium as its new acquirer. Atos defended the choice with three motivations. Onepoint has a strong business interest, is consistent with the financial parameters being pursued, and has the support already obtained from a large part of Atos’ creditors.
Read the full article here: Atos confident Onepoint can save the company
June 6 – On the day Atos was supposed to tie the knot over a new owner, it has opted for a delay. EP Equity Investment and Onepoint are still the candidates for acquisition. The postponement by a week is necessary to ensure “maximum support” from Atos’ creditors.
There is no question of a postponement for the actual acquisition going through: that deal is still due in July.
June 3 – Atos will decide which takeover bid it will accept before Thursday, June 6. There are still two proposals under consideration: EP Equity Investment and Onepoint. Onepoint is Atos’s largest shareholder and made a proposal in collaboration with Butler Industries and Econocom. These proposals met Atos’s objectives, including debt reduction and financing needs.
After Atos makes a decision, it expects to reach an agreement on the financial restructuring in July. Then, the necessary restructuring can start.
Discussions with the French state for the takeover of strategically relevant parts are still ongoing. The company expects to take the next step in mid-June. Atos is also processing acquisition proposals for its smart energy company, Worldgrid.
May 22 – Atos still has a full year to get the 2023 financial statements approved. The extension of the deadline was given by the President of the Commercial Court of Pontoise, France. It was reasoned Atos can use some extra time to end the ongoing discussions regarding the financial restructurings.
May 20 – The European Central Bank is one of the largest bondholders, with about 20 percent of bonds, says French media company La Lettre. Thus, the central bank would have €500 million worth of loans outstanding with Atos. According to La Lettre, these bonds were issued from 2014 to 2017. The ECB stepped in with the bonds at the time under Mario Draghi’s time, who had a larger plan to accelerate eurozone growth.
What exactly happens to the ECB’s bonds is unclear. Indeed, restructuring plans are currently being drawn up and assessed, with some €4.8 billion of debt at the centre of these plans. The ECB did not comment to the story.
May 16 – Econocom has also become part of the Onepoint consortium to rescue Atos. At the helm of Onepoint is David Layani, who wants to become CEO of the French IT service provider. Investment company Butler Industries is also part of the consortium. It is one of three contenders to make a crucial financial injection into Atos.
Econocom, a B2B service provider based in France, reiterates the three goals the consortium has in mind. It wants to keep Atos whole, achieve growth and restructure Atos’ debt.
May 6 – The May 3rd deadline for financial proposals towards Atos has passed. Of these, four came in: these are from OnePoint (already the largest Atos shareholder and in partnership with Butler Industries), Bain Capital, Daniel Kretinsky’s EPEI and investment company Attestor.
Bloomberg has elaborated on the proposals. A group of Atos bondholders is proposing to lend €1.2 billion and convert €1.8 billion of debt into shares. The group hopes to avoid a break-up of Atos and wants to keep its headquarters in Paris. Meanwhile, Kretinsky and Attestor want to inject 600 million euros in new equity and facilitate 1.3 billion euros in working capital. OnePoint and Butler Industries want to inject 350 million euros in exchange for 35 percent of shares. If Atos agrees to the latter, OnePoint’s David Layani will become CEO.
Atos has declined Bain Capital’s financial proposal, suggesting it wasn’t high enough. Talks with the French state to acquire strategically relevant parts are still ongoing.
We can expect another announcement on a deal on 31 May, with July as the final deadline. An interim deal for €100 million is already in place.
May 4 – A deal has been offered to save Atos. Creditors and banks that would have collected the company’s astronomical debt will inject 1.2 billion euros. Part of the debt is set to be waived, French financial newspaper La Tribune reports. The amount Atos has asked for has shifted several times. After requiring first 600 million and then 1.1 billion euros, it slid to 1.7 billion euros to stay alive until the end of 2025. It therefore remains to be seen whether this financial injection will be enough.
May 3 – American investment firm Bain Capital is also interested in parts of Atos. French financial news agency Les Echos reports that Bain is expected to announce this today. The deadline to come up with investment plans for Atos is the evening of Friday, May 3.
Bain Capital’s portfolio also includes French IT provider Inetum. However, this private equity’s investments span a variety of sectors, from healthcare and food to HR consulting and turbine manufacturing.
May 1 – Thales may want to take over “strategic” parts of Atos, says CFO Pascal Bouchiat. But: “We are not interested in BDS,” he states. Nevertheless, the BDS division does contain components that Thales would like to acquire. These parts focus on defense and security might well fall under Thales. If those are for sale, “we would not object to looking at it,” Bouchiat said.
After disappearing from the spotlight for a while, Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky also seems interested in Atos again. In February, he also bought ailing French retailer Casino.
One can’t fault anyone for getting a déjà vu regarding Thales’ interest in Atos. Thales has had occasional interest in that company’s BDS division for years. In 2022, for example, it was looking to acquire this division for 2.7 billion euros. Meanwhile, the market value of the entire Atos company has collapsed by around 90 percent in two years. Currently, it is worth just over 200 million euros.
Atos set up its own BDS division in 2014 after buying up compatriot Bull. In addition to Thales, Orange, Capgemini and Airbus, among others, have repeatedly expressed interest in various Atos units.
April 29 – The French government may want to buy up parts of Atos. Together with a consortium including Thales, it would target three parts of the BDS division. These are Advanced Computing, Critical Systems and Cyber Products. With this, France is targeting the strategically important components of Atos, which is responsible for the servers that house the data of the French military and security services, among other things. A letter of intent has been signed, estimating the value of the components at between 700 million and 1 billion euros.
April 25 – Atos needs an even more substantial debt restructuring to make it through 2025 than previously stated: 1.7 billion euros. External investors have until May 3 to come up with refinancing proposals. CEO Paul Saleh reiterated that he wants to settle a debt agreement in July.
When you boil it all down, the total debt has to be halved. This is far from the first time Atos has reached this conclusion, but after the failure of multiple negotiations with Airbus and businessman Daniel Kretinsky, among others, the need is higher than ever.
April 9 – Atos has come to the conclusion that it requires not 600 million euros, but 1.2 billion euros to make it through 2025. A debt restructuring is necessary because it cannot conceivably raise 3.65 billion euros to creditors this year as planned. That is the vast majority of the total debt, which amounts to 4.7 billion euros.
April 8 – French investment company Butler Industries wants to contribute to a rescue of Atos. It joins a consortium of major shareholder Onepoint. The ambitions don’t lie: the group wants Atos to grow into “the leading European platform for cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.” As a European player, it would be perfectly positioned to emerge as a leading sovereign cloud operator, the consortium members think.
March 26 – Annual results show Atos is deep in the red. It turned a 3.44 billion euro loss in 2023, sharply higher than the 1.01 billion euro loss in 2022. New agreements should be reached with creditors in July, CEO Paul Saleh said.
March 19 – The Big Data & Cybersecurity (BDS) division will not be sold to Airbus after all. The aircraft maker has abandoned a deal that would have raised 1.5 to 1.8 billion euros. The French state had strongly encouraged the proposed acquisition, but negotiations have reached a dead end.
While Airbus investors show their relief financially, Atos’ share price is in free fall. Immediately after the news, the share price fell 21 percent.
February 29 – Atos has added three new members to its Board of Directors. The move represents the first step since calling off a deal with investment company EPEI, led by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky. David Layani and Helen Lee Bouygues, both employed at Onepoint, join. Onepoint owns 11.4 percent of Atos, making it the largest shareholder.
February 28 – Negotiations between Atos and EPEI have broken down. Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, who heads EPEI, wanted to buy the Tech Foundations part of Atos. The debt of this part alone amounts to 1.9 billion euros, which EPEI seemed to want to take over.
Previous articles on Atos in 2024:
February 6 – French state wants to retain Atos at all costs
February 5 – Atos tries to refinance outstanding debts
January 3 – Atos can possibly sell cybersecurity division to Airbus