The Atos headquarters in Bezons, near Paris, April 26, 2024 (AFP / Ludovic MARIN)
Yet another twist in the Atos soap opera: the consortium led by Onepoint, chosen three weeks ago to save the heavily indebted French IT flagship, throws in the towel, leaving the way for Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, rejected at the start of June, to resume the discussions.
“The Onepoint, Butler Industries and Econocom consortium noted that the conditions were not met to conclude an agreement paving the way for a lasting solution for financial restructuring and implementation” of its project, announced Onepoint, led by David Layani, in a press release.
This announcement comes less than three weeks after his consortium emerged victorious in the competition for the takeover of Atos against Daniel Kretinsky.
Its takeover offer was judged to be “better oriented in terms of the company’s social interest” by the group’s board of directors and the majority of its creditors.
Having been battered for several years on the Paris Stock Exchange, Atos shares closed on Wednesday down 6.68%, to 1.12 euros.
Mired in a financial crisis for almost three years, Atos, technological pillar of the Paris Olympics this summer and present in several sensitive activities, including supercomputers used for the French nuclear deterrent, initiated a restructuring procedure in February.
The company had announced that it needed 1.1 billion euros in liquidity for its activity in 2024-2025 and wanted to massively reduce its gross debt, by 4.8 billion euros, to safeguard its activity.
To “satisfy the group’s short and medium-term liquidity demand”, Atos indicates that it has received “a revised global financial restructuring proposal” from its creditors.
“Discussions are continuing with the representative committee of creditors and certain banks on the basis of this proposal with a view to reaching an agreement as soon as possible,” he added, while EPEI, of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, sent “a letter reiterating its interest in participating in its financial restructuring”.
– “Protect the interests” of the State –
Having been in discussions for a long time to buy part of Atos before negotiations broke down in February, he revised his offer twice to David Layani’s consortium, without success.
At the same time, Atos announced on Wednesday that it had “finalized” the negotiation with the French State “of an agreement aimed at protecting the sovereignty interests” of the State in respect of certain activities carried out by the IT group.
Since the start of the giant’s fall, the fate of these strategic activities has been a major political issue. In mid-June, the French state made an offer of 700 million euros to buy Atos’ activities deemed strategic and sensitive, including supercomputers, contracts with the French army and cybersecurity products.
Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, January 22, 2020 in Paris (AFP / JOEL SAGET)
This offer aims to prevent these activities from falling into the hands of foreign actors. It concerns “the potential acquisition of 100% of the activities of Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems and Cybersecurity Products of the BDS (Big Data & Cybersecurity) division” of Atos.
The French Ministry of the Economy also granted a loan of 50 million euros to the company and acquired a “preferential action” allowing it to veto certain operations at the level of Bull, the subsidiary which builds these supercomputers .
“The sovereign assets have been secured by a +Golden Share+ from the State and the operation of repurchase of these sovereign assets by the State in connection with industrialists continues in parallel as planned”, indicated Bercy to the AFP.
“The State, via the Interministerial Committee for Industrial Restructuring, continues to monitor the file very precisely in order to promote continuity solutions for the Atos company,” the same source added.
In the wake of the choice of Onepoint, Atos also announced that it had entered into exclusive negotiations with the French engineering group Alten with a view to the sale of Worldgrid, its highly critical subsidiary which designs the control systems for nuclear power plants, notably for EDF. , and is however not part of the strategic activities that the French State wishes to acquire.
Atos expects an agreement in principle on the financial restructuring during the week of June 24 and a definitive agreement with a majority of financial creditors during the week of July 22.
Global IT partner of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2002, Atos will be one of the technological pillars of the Paris Olympics. He will be responsible for managing accreditations, instant dissemination of results and even cybersecurity.