The IT group Atos, in the midst of a financial restructuring, has entered into exclusive negotiations with the French State with a view to selling it the strategic activities of its “Advanced Computing” branch, which notably include supercomputers used for nuclear deterrence, he said. -he announced this Monday, November 25. The planned operation, which also concerns servers participating in artificial intelligence activities, covers the entire branch, for a company value of between 500 and 625 million euros, specifies a press release.
The French State’s offer provides for discussions to take place until May 31, 2025 at the latest for “Advanced Computing”, which brings together some 2,500 employees and generated a turnover of 570 million euros in 2023. “The opening of exclusive discussions between the State and Atos constitutes a crucial first step, not only for the recovery and restructuring of the group but also for securing the strategic activity supercomputers”, reacted the Minister of the Economy, Antoine Armand, in a separate press release.
At the beginning of November, Atos had already announced the issue of a preferred share for the benefit of France, granting it special rights at the level of Bull SA, the subsidiary which builds the supercomputers used in particular to simulate nuclear deterrence tests.
150 million euros upon signing of the agreement
In the event of a positive conclusion to the exclusive negotiations announced this Monday, it is expected that the IT group will receive a first payment of 150 million euros upon signature of the agreement and that an “organized transfer” process will take place for the “Cybersecurity Products and Mission Critical Systems” activities.
The latter, which achieved a turnover of some 340 million euros in 2023, include the Scorpion command system (Army modernization program), navigation tools for naval forces and the merchant marine, or real-time mapping for the military.
Atos, which had been in disarray for several years, received a breath of fresh air at the end of October, with the validation by the commercial court of its accelerated safeguard plan. This plan, voted on at the beginning of September by creditors and shareholders, provides for debt relief of 3 billion euros, out of a total of nearly 5 billion, a capital increase and a “massive” dilution of shareholders. It is supposed to be implemented by January 2025 at the latest.