Logo of the French IT consulting company Atos, in Angers
Atos announced on Wednesday the end of negotiations with its first shareholder Onepoint, David Layani’s company, with a view to its financial restructuring, allowing Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, whose offer had been rejected, to return to the discussions.
The offer from Onepoint, with which Butler Industries and Econocom were associated, was accepted earlier this month to the detriment of that, considered more radical, from EP Equity Investment (EPEI), Daniel Kretinsky’s holding company.
In a press release, Atos announced that it had “received from the representative committee of its bondholders (SteerCo) a revised global financial restructuring proposal… taking into account the decision of Onepoint, Butler Industries and Econocom to withdraw from discussions “.
He adds that EPEI has offered to resume discussions with the group and its financial creditors.
In a separate statement, Onepoint confirmed the end of negotiations with Atos, stating that “the conditions were not met to conclude an agreement paving the way for a lasting solution for financial restructuring and implementation of the project.”
On the Paris Stock Exchange, Atos shares, which have had a very volatile performance, rose 1.2% to 1.21 euros at 07:50 GMT.
The offer from the consortium led by Onepoint planned to convert 2.9 billion euros of the 4.8 billion euros of existing debt into shares, while maintaining the scope of the group as part of a project called “OneAtos “.
In great financial difficulties, Atos is currently holding discussions with its creditors to restructure its debt, which it still intends to finalize in July.
But the process is proving complicated and several asset sales operations with Daniel Kretinsky and Airbus have already failed.
These difficulties pushed the State to intervene to protect the activities considered strategic by Atos, which notably secures communications for the army and the French secret services and manufactures servers for supercomputers.
On Wednesday, Atos announced that it had finalized an agreement aimed at protecting the sovereignty interests of the French state, under which France will benefit from governance rights within Bull SA, a subsidiary of the IT group.
The agreement provides in particular that the State may acquire sensitive sovereign activities in the event of a third party crossing the threshold of 10% of the capital or voting rights of Atos or Bull SA.
The State has also proposed to take over 100% of the activities of the Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems and Cybersecurity Products divisions grouped within the Big Data & Cybersecurity (BDS) branch.
(Written by Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)
