Atos: towards nationalisation of strategic activities

(CercleFinance.com) - Atos announced on Monday that it had received a non-binding letter of intent from the French government to acquire 100% of its supercomputing, critical systems and cybersecurity businesses.


In a press release, the technology group said it welcomes the proposal, which would be based on an indicative enterprise value of between E700m and E1bn

In comparison, Atos' total market cap is currently less than E250m.

On the Paris stock exchange, the share jumped by almost 15% in early trading on Monday.

From the company's point of view, such a project would make it possible to protect the French government's strategic imperatives of sovereignty.

A due diligence phase (consultation of financial statements) could therefore begin shortly, with a view to issuing a non-binding confirmatory offer by the beginning of June.

According to Atos, the Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems and Cybersecurity Products businesses represent sales of around E1bn, out of a total of E1.5bn for the entire Data and Security Division (BDS).

At the same time, the Group says it has revised the parameters of its financial restructuring framework presented earlier this month, now estimating the cash required to finance its business over the period 2024-2025 at E1.1bn, compared with E600m hitherto.

As previously envisaged, these funds would have to be provided in the form of debt and/or equity by existing stakeholders or third-party investors.

Note that these parameters are based on the current Atos perimeter as a whole, without taking into account the proposed partial takeover by the French state.

The situation is becoming a little clearer, but dilution will nevertheless remain significant, Oddo BHF analysts said, in view of these significantly revised financing requirements.


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