In the pantheon of state scandals, the Atos affair could well join the sale of Alstom to the American General Electric. As if we had collectively learned nothing from the mistakes of the past. For months now, the saga of the split of the IT services group and the sale of a part to the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky has been stirring Parisian business circles. Delighting investment bankers, communicators and specialist lawyers in passing.
Let’s recognize it: complexity – opacity! – the financial arrangement and the aridity of the material mean that the fate of Atos is not publicized. In the heart of summer, a Tribune published in Le Figaro and signed by 82 parliamentarians denouncing the project of ex-president Bertrand Meunier had caused quite a bit of ink to flow, before being quickly forgotten. Except that today, the issue is becoming very political.
A political affair
In recent days, Atos has been invited to the National Assembly, at the heart of the very powerful Finance Commission. The deputies thus voted for an amendment to the finance bill for 2024 relating to the temporary nationalization of the company’s strategic activities, in particular those encompassing all contracts with the army, nuclear deterrence and even customs.
A very symbolic vote since the government would have to pull out the 49.3 card to adopt the budget… without this amendment. No matter, it’s a political stone in the government’s garden. The RN, always in search of respectability, is talking about using its “drawing rights” to launch a parliamentary commission of inquiry on the subject. And in the Senate, the LR would have obtained the green light from President Gérard Larcher for the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to take up the matter if the National Assembly gave up on it.
Meanwhile, the silence from the executive, and in particular from Bercy, is deafening. “We are attentive and the work continues,” says an advisor to Bruno Le Maire. In reality, the more the days pass, the more the initial plan – the purchase of the outsourcing part by Daniel Kretinsky, and his acquisition of a 7.5% stake in the capital of the other part, Eviden – seems impossible to carry out. Because half of the shareholders must approve the split of the company and two thirds of them must approve a capital increase during a general meeting which continues to be postponed, at best to spring 2024. However , the small shareholders who have in their hands nearly 56% of the capital and who have grouped together within an association, are fiercely against. A plan B, or even C, must emerge. And quick. The new president of Atos, the banker Jean-Pierre Mustier, is working on it. The future of 100,000 employees depends on it.