By Matteo Rosemin
PARIS (Reuters) – Czech billionaire Daniel Krytinski is in unique talks to purchase loss-making legacy Atos operations in a 2 billion euro ($2.20 billion) deal that might considerably scale back the scope and liabilities of the troubled French IT consultancy.
The corporate stated the talks, which have been introduced with Kretinsky’s subsidiary EP Fairness Funding (EPEI), come on high of a €900m fairness sale plan, geared toward additional propping up Atos’ stability sheet.
Atos stated the anticipated sale would usher in 100 million euros in money and scale back 1.9 billion euros in liabilities from the expertise firm’s stability sheet. The mission provides a price of two billion euros to the offered division, referred to as Tech Foundations.
Tech Foundations, whose actions generated 4.5 billion euros in income final 12 months, supplies infrastructure administration providers.
Atos shares have been up 6.8 p.c in early Paris buying and selling.
Atos deliberate to separate the corporate in two, whereas separating its most sought-after belongings, akin to its BDS cybersecurity unit and supercomputers, thought of strategic by the French state, into a brand new unit referred to as Eviden.
The expensive break up was an try to revive investor confidence after a number of extreme setbacks and administration instability.
After the sale of the technical unit, Atos will proceed to be renamed Eviden.
Deep web price Kretinsky, who made his fortune within the power sector, is searching for a shopping for spree in France, having set his eyes on a wide range of belongings, from French retailer On line casino to Vivendi’s Editis publishing group.
Atos additionally introduced the departure of Chief Monetary Officer Natalie Senicholt, who held the primary place for one 12 months. Incoming CFO Paul Saleh, after a number of days of labor, was in contact with analysts on Tuesday morning.
($1 = 0.9095 euros)
(Reporting by Matthew Rosemin and Sudeep Kar-Gupta; Modifying by Edmund Kellman and Sharon Singleton)