After two postponements, the French IT group Atos, in the midst of a financial crisis, reveals its annual results and the “next steps” of its rescue plan (AFP/Damien MEYER)
After two postponements, the French IT group Atos, in the midst of a financial crisis, reveals its annual results and the “next steps” of its rescue plan on Tuesday morning, following the failure of the sale of part of its activities who was to bring him new money.
The management of this former flagship, supposed to ensure a large part of the technological operations of the Olympic Games this summer, had proposed a plan in 2022 including its split into two entities: Tech Foundation, which brings together the historic outsourcing activities, and Eviden, which notably includes the “big data” and security (BDS) activities, the group’s gem.
But the future of Atos, whose debt is panicking investors – with 3.65 billion euros of loans and bonds to be repaid or refinanced by the end of 2025 – has become a little darker with the withdrawal of Airbus from discussions for the acquisition of BDS last week.
A failure that occurred just a few weeks after negotiations with Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky for the sale of Tech Foundations.
The group still unveiled some indicators of its 2023 performance at the end of February, when the publication of its results was first postponed. He then mentioned a turnover of 10.7 billion euros, for an operating margin rate (testimony to its profitability) of 4.4%, compared to 3.1% in 2022.
Another highly scrutinized element: Atos had stressed having consumed 1.08 billion euros of cash last year, a level generally in line with its expectations.
While trading at around 15 euros at the end of July 2023, the stock lost more than 80% of its value, falling below 2 euros, bringing the company’s valuation to less than 200 million euros. euros.
– Change of direction –
“We have had a lot of concerns about the future of the group for more than two years because we have successive management teams who are incapable of managing the situation,” laments Fabrice Lorioux, Unsa union representative, to AFP. within Atos.
Atos logo, photographed on April 4, 2019 (AFP/Archives/ERIC PIERMONT)
“It’s complicated, but we don’t despair. We have a lot of activities that bring in money, which are stable. But the problem is that with what’s in the press, we has difficulty recruiting, we lose profiles,” he adds.
On Sunday, David Layani, boss of Onepoint, the largest shareholder of Atos, revealed his plan to save the group, calling for “immediately putting an end to any sale project”, in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro.
“It is not at the moment when we must reinvent ourselves and start again that we must sell our family jewels,” argued the director of the firm which holds more than 11% of the capital.
“The company takes note of the comments made by David Layani. (…) These comments do not commit the company and its board of directors”, which will communicate its position “in due course”, Atos responded in a press release on Monday .
– “Protection of strategic activities” –
Last Tuesday, the CFE-CGC, the group’s first union, defended David Layani’s project, “the only one to respond” to the company’s “survival” and “growth” objectives.
“It’s clear, clear and precise. We finally have someone who doesn’t just think financially, but with a principle of industrial development”, greets Jérôme Loriot, secretary of the central social and economic committee of Atos France.
This photo taken on April 4, 2019 at the Atos headquarters in Bezons, near Paris, shows the logo of the French IT group (AFP/Archives/ERIC PIERMONT)
While Atos has supercomputers, notably used in defense and nuclear power, the French Ministry of the Economy Bruno Le Maire is committed “to building in the coming weeks a national solution for the protection of strategic activities”.
“On the slightly more sovereign part [d’Atos]if there is a majority buyer and he wishes to have [Bpifrance] in the minority, we will look,” said the general director of the public investment bank Nicolas Dufourcq on Monday on BFM Business.
“But the BPI cannot be in the majority, that would mean that we nationalize. It is not even in our statute, in our mandate. So there must be someone opposite,” he said. He specifies.
Without “industrial solution which preserves all assets, it is chaos and the end of Atos”, insisted David Layani on Sunday, calling for “act quickly, before the 2024 Olympics and before the summer”.
© 2024 AFP
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