Daniel Kretinsky is on all fronts in France. In addition to flying to the aid of the distributor Casino, the Czech businessman (indirect shareholder of the World) will acquire Tech Foundations, the entity that encompasses the historical activities of the Atos IT group. The transaction, negotiated for several months and formalized on 1er August, will be carried out by EP Equity Investment, its main investment company.
For this sale, Atos will receive 100 million euros, an extremely small amount given the size of Tech Foundations, which generates 5.4 billion euros in turnover and employs 52,000 people worldwide. But this will give a breath of fresh air to the IT group, whose finances had deteriorated sharply over the past two years, to the point of raising questions about its medium-term solvency. The announcement on July 28 of the half-year results had led to a 35% drop in the share price in two days.
The agreement provides for Atos to transfer €1.9 billion of financial commitments to EP Equity Investment. The transaction will also allow the IT company to eliminate approximately 1 billion euros in working capital each year. The recovery of Tech Foundations should not pose a problem of sovereignty, no Atos outsourcing contract being really sensitive for national security.
Structural change
In addition to this sale, Atos, which will rename itself with the name of its subsidiary Eviden, to make this change of structure a reality, will carry out a capital increase of 900 million euros in order to finance the development of the cybersecurity activities it wishes keep. Mr. Kretinsky will again be essential: he alone will bring 217.5 million euros. EP Equity Investment would thus hold 7.5% of the capital of Eviden, which will make it the leading shareholder.
Fimalac, the investment company of Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, already associated with the Czech businessman in the Casino file, should also participate in these financing operations. Atos will convene an extraordinary general meeting in the last quarter, so that its shareholders decide on this dismantling plan. Eviden would remain listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.
For Atos, the second French IT group after Capgemini and led until 2019 by Thierry Breton, before his departure for the European Commission, going under the thumb of Mr. Kretinsky’s investment company sounds like a failure. By launching in June 2022 a split plan between its historical activities and those of cybersecurity, promised to a brighter future, Atos hoped to initiate a beauty contest between several renowned industrialists.
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