IWe need a French industrialist, the government had warned. Atos’ big data, encryption, supercomputing and cybersecurity businesses are too strategic to fall into foreign hands. After an approach from Orange and the electronics and defense group Thales, which did not want to take over, Airbus will support the struggling IT company. Atos announced it itself, in a press release published on Thursday February 16.
Atos received “an indicative offer from Airbus to enter into a long-term strategic and technological agreement and acquire a 29.9% minority stake in Evidian”, the entity where the best assets of Atos, being split, will be housed in the second half, the company says. She nevertheless warns that she does not grant him exclusivity and that“no certainty can be given as to the outcome of the negotiations”.
The acquisition would represent an investment of more than 1 billion euros for the aircraft manufacturer, which has the means. On Thursday, it published a turnover of 58.8 billion euros (+ 13%) and a record profit of 4.2 billion for 2022, despite tensions in its supply chain which prevent it from accelerating its production rates and honoring all its orders on time.
Double-digit margins
This operation is interesting on two counts. For the European Union first, where Thierry Breton, commissioner in charge of industry and ex-boss of Atos, swears by“strategic autonomy”. This merger would create “a leading European player in the field of cybersecurity and in the digitization of defence, public security and critical national infrastructures”, says Atos.
The group already supplies the information system for the Scorpion program to modernize the army, secures sites for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and performs calculations for nuclear deterrence.
The operation is also interesting for the European aircraft manufacturer. Airbus Defense and Space, associated with Dassault Aviation in the Air Combat System of the Future, needs to strengthen itself to develop the combat cloud, one of the major pillars of the Franco-German-Spanish program.
And like all manufacturers, Airbus also wants, beyond its aircraft, to help airlines optimize the trajectories of the 12,000 Airbuses in flight and ensure the best predictive maintenance. Data and computing capacities are essential to offer such services, where the group is already present with Palantir and their joint platform Skywise. A huge market, with double-digit margins, where the eternal rival Boeing has not remained inactive.