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(Reuters) – Atos announced on Monday that it had not reached an agreement with the French state, which had proposed in June to buy certain strategic assets of the group’s Big data and security (BDS) activity, which however wishes to continue the discussions with Bercy.
“The non-binding confirmatory offer from the French State, relating to the potential acquisition of the Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems and Cybersecurity Products activities of BDS (…) expired on October 4, without the parties being reached an agreement,” Atos said in a statement.
Atos, however, specifies that it wants to continue discussions and has sent to the French State “a new proposal compatible with the financial restructuring plan”.
Contacted by Reuters, the group, which did not specify the reason why the two parties did not reach an agreement, did not wish to comment.
The group’s shareholders and creditors approved at the end of September a draft accelerated safeguard plan aimed at restructuring its debt, estimated at nearly 5 billion euros.
The lack of agreement does not impact the ongoing financial restructuring process while the restructuring plan integrates the preservation of these activities within the group, specifies Atos.
In a separate press release, the Minister of Economy and Finance, Antoine Armand, said he had taken note of Atos’ decision and that the State will propose a new acquisition plan “soon”.
“The State wishes to offer the best possible development framework for these activities essential to its sovereignty and in this sense maintains its acquisition project from the Atos group,” added the minister.
The struggling group announced in June that it had received a non-binding confirmatory offer letter from the French State for the acquisition of strategic activities.
The proposed enterprise value at the time for the assets in question was €700 million.
On the Paris Stock Exchange, around 08:30 GMT, the stock fell 0.79% to 0.67 euros.
(Written by Noémie Naudin and Kate Entringer, with the contribution of Florence Loève, edited by Augustin Turpin)
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