The State does not intend to duplicate itself in this sensitive matter. The government took a further step this weekend in rescuing Atos, announcing that it had expressed interest to the struggling French IT giant in acquiring all of its sovereign activities.
The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, declared on LCI on Sunday that he had sent a letter of intent to the company in order to prevent strategic activities for France from “passing into the hands of foreign players” .
Supercomputers
Atos, in the midst of financial turmoil, notably owns supercomputers used for nuclear deterrence and contracts with the French army. “I am following the file very closely. Why? Because at Atos there are a certain number of strategic activities for the French nation, strategic for our sovereignty, strategic for our defense, in terms of cybersecurity, in terms of supercomputers , in nuclear matters”, explained Bruno Le Maire, believing that “these sovereign activities must remain under the exclusive control of France”.
The activities concerned by the letter of intent cover in particular these supercomputers, servers participating in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing or even cybersecurity products, we learned from the minister’s office.
This scope generates an annual turnover of around 900 million euros, out of a total of nearly 11 billion euros for the entire Atos group, and brings together some 4,000 employees, mainly based in France. , specified the same source. No amount for a buyout has been disclosed. Contacted by AFP, Atos did not wish to react on Sunday evening.
The State is looking for French partners
In this eminently political issue, the State has already committed to lending 50 million euros to the company to help it stabilize its financial situation and has acquired a “preferential action” which allows it to veto to certain operations at Bull, a subsidiary of Atos which builds its supercomputers.
For this letter of intent, an action which is not binding, it is the State Participation Agency which is leading the operation under the authority of Bruno Le Maire, the latter underlined.
The minister, however, said he hoped “that the State is not alone” and hopes to rally other French actors for this operation. Without giving their names, he explained that they could be companies operating in the fields of defense or aeronautics. According to his office, “discussions” have been underway “for several weeks” with a certain number of industrialists “which would make sense in terms of the development of these activities”.
The former flagship in difficulty, which is one of the technological pillars of the Paris Games, lost more than 80% of its stock market value in one year, after seeing two sale operations collapse in quick succession. part of his activities which were to put him back afloat. He indicated at the beginning of April that he was looking for 1.2 billion euros in new money and wanted to halve his debt, which is around 5 billion euros, by converting it into shares.
Atos then put together a business plan for the period 2024-2027, counting in particular on a “resumption of commercial activities from the end of 2024”, with the assumption of a turnover of around 9, 9 billion euros in 2024 then 11.4 billion euros in 2027. He had also asked his creditors to make refinancing proposals before Friday.
But a less successful first quarter than expected, ending with an 11% decline in turnover, led it to indicate this week that it had to revise its forecasts by 2027, which could lead to an increased need in liquidity and a greater reduction in debt than envisaged. The company has therefore decided to give its creditors until May 3 to make their proposals.