Atos: shareholders and consulting firms have glutted themselves, leaving the company’s price at… 0.002 euros

The stock price of the IT services group Atos has been around… 0.002 euros in recent days. If the fall of the former French flagship continues, it also makes people happy. Between the capital increases which have just given rise to a game of bonneteau and the revelations, this Wednesday, of the Letter, Off investigation et Liberation, concerning hundreds of millions of euros paid by successive managements to law firms, consultants and investment banks, in strategic or vague financial advice, Atos remains a good deal for those who know how to take advantage of it.

As provided for in the accelerated safeguard plan adopted by the specialized commercial court of Nanterre, on October 15, a capital increase operation was carried out. With the aim of converting 2.9 billion in debt and providing 1.5 billion euros of financing, the creditor shareholders of the group crippled with debt (nearly 5 billion euros) were invited in mid-November to transform their Atos shares in warrants of the new company Atos SE.

Get rid of short-term financiers

“Implementation (…) will result in a massive issuance of new shares and substantial dilution of current shareholders”had warned the current management. It didn’t fail: the little carriers were mowed down. According to the results communicated on Monday, 179 billion of these converted shares are floating around, for a value of 0.0001 euros each.

Monkey money that is starting to attract aficionados of off-the-shelf sales. Thus, the New York alternative investment fund DE Shaw & Co, LP, specializing in IT, now holds 9.95% of the capital and voting rights.

Because, if the French State entered into exclusive negotiations on November 25 to get its hands on Advanced Computing, the strategic supercomputers branch, Atos, which provides at least half of the digital infrastructures of our public services, holds some great nuggets… that managers put on sale regularly.

After the Atos Italy subsidiary and EcoAct, Worldgrid has just been sold. “The group could become profitable againassures Pascal Besson, CGT delegate at Atos Eviden. For that, the State would have to get rid of our governance, made up of short-term financiers, and invest, as it has just done by nationalizing Alcatel’s submarine cables, to restart the machine and quickly reap dividends. »

The public authorities do not seem to be taking this path. Especially since the image of Atos continues to deteriorate. Over the last three years, successive managements have paid between 600 and 700 million euros in fees to law firms, consultants and other investment banks, according to a confidential internal file revealed by an employee seeking employment status. whistleblower.

A senatorial information report from April 2024 already mentioned more than 700 million euros spent since 2019 to carry out three reorganization plans. “For years we have been asking the CSE to know these costs. It’s worse than imagined”laments Pascal Besson.