Posted Jan 10, 2023, 6:55 PMUpdated Jan 11, 2023, 6:55 PM
PARIS (Reuters) – Thales will not make an offer to take a stake in Evidian, a future separate entity from Atos, a spokeswoman for the group told Reuters on Tuesday, amid market speculation of an interest of the advocacy group for the digital services company.
Atos announced last June its proposed spin-off aimed at separating and combining the coveted Big Data and Security (BDS) division and other assets, within an entity called Evidian.
Asked about the possibility of Thales taking a stake in Evidian, the spokesperson indicated that the group was not interested, such an operation not corresponding to Thales’ strategy.
Thales “has no intention of diversifying into markets other than those it already serves,” the spokeswoman said.
Sources told Reuters last year that Thales, which also offers cybersecurity services to its customers, was working on a plan to buy BDS activities from Atos, before the latter said it did not want to sell this division.
According to information from Les Echos last week, Airbus is considering taking a minority stake in Evidian.
Atos rejected in September an offer to buy Evidian for an enterprise value of 4.2 billion euros from the Onepoint group.
(Report Mathieu Rosemain, Jean Terzian for the French version, edited by Blandine Hénault)