Sycomore AM calls for the departure of the chairman of Atos | Photo credits: ATOS/ROMI/REA
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PARIS, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Sycomore Asset Management, a minority shareholder in Atos, wants the resignation of the group’s chairman, Bertrand Meunier, and the replacement of the oldest members of the board of directors by specialists in the sector, said to Reuters Cyril Charlot, founding partner of the management company.
Sycomore AM considers the Atos spin-off project to be too ambitious and too complex, he added.
Atos did not react immediately.
Sycomore AM owns between 0.5% and 1% of the capital of Atos.
The IT and cybersecurity group is going through a period of turbulence and has struggled to reassure investors in recent months, marked by two changes at its head and the downgrading of its credit rating to BB by the rating agency S&P at the mid-July.
Atos’ stock price has fallen 75% since the start of the year and its market capitalization has fallen below one billion euros, according to Refinitiv data.
Atos had announced almost simultaneously in June a plan to split its activities before probable disposals and the departure of its managing director, Rodolphe Belmer, leading to a new movement of mistrust on the stock market and the anger of some of its shareholders.
Bertrand Meunier, chairman of the board of directors, has been the target of criticism since the group’s financial collapse. (Report Julien Ponthus and Mathieu Rosemain, French version Sophie Louet, Marc Angrand and Nicolas Delame)