BDS, three letters in the form of hope. Struggling for a year, Atos has made its big data and security division its lifeline. Although this unit is the smallest in the IT group, with approximately 7,000 employees out of the approximately 100,000 employed by Atos, “she has become his core”says an administrator. “BDS activities are intertwined everywhere in Atos. For example, cybersecurity is sold in standard outsourcing contracts, which makes them more attractive. If you separate the two, it no longer works”worries an executive, for whom selling BDS would be “a suicide”. It is the only growing division of Atos, with a comfortable operating margin of almost 15%.
Aware of the problems of Atos, and even if he assures that“no discussion is underway with Atos in this regard”Thales has made BDS its number one target to grow in cybersecurity. “Patrice Caine, the CEO of Thales, in a dream”, sums up someone close to the file. Thales makes no secret of its ambitions in cybersecurity. The defense group controlled by the State and Dassault Aviation has multiplied acquisitions in a market whose growth, estimated at 10% per year, is not expected to weaken. Atos and Thales have been competing on this ground for several years now. Atos had launched, at the end of 2017, a flash takeover bid on Gemalto, a specialist in digital security solutions, forcing Thales to retaliate so as not to let this prey escape.
But, despite its belly dancing, buying BDS promises to be complex for Thales. The operation would require meticulous carve-out work, knowing that this division is not a legal entity in its own right, but brings together various departments spread throughout the group, a large part of which comes from the takeover of Bull in 2014. An operation to be credited to Thierry Breton, former CEO of Atos and director of the supercomputer manufacturer, in the mid-1990s.
The question of sovereignty
Launching a takeover bid on the whole group would be even more risky. “This would force Thales to take over 100,000 employees all at once and manage the recovery of declining activities, which it does not want at all. Unless they are sold to a competitor or to investment funds”, explains a person close to the file. The funds have shown that traditional IT does not put them off, despite its limited growth prospects. Bain Capital, for example, bought the French Inetum (formerly GFI Informatique) in January.
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