French executive Stephane Richard: Not interested in Atos

Perella Weinberg Partners

29/05/2024 07:13

PARIS, May 29 (Reuters) - Stephane Richard, former chief
executive of telecoms company Orange  ORAN.PA  and current
partner at Perella Weinberg, said on Wednesday he was not
interested in getting involved in the restructuring of indebted
tech group Atos  ATOS.PA .
    Richard was responding to an article published in Le Figaro
newspaper, which linked him to French businessman David Layani's
interest in Atos.
    Last month, the French government signed a letter of intent
to acquire Atos assets deemed to have strategic importance
including Atos' Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems and
Cyber Products. 
    
    WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
    Atos is in the middle of a restructuring and planned asset
sale programme.
    The French government considers Atos as having assets that
are of strategic importance to France.
    Atos secures communications for the French military and
secret services and manufactures servers to make supercomputers
capable of processing vast amounts of data for research or to
develop the nascent artificial intelligence industry.
    Atos also runs data for the Paris Olympic Games.
    
    KEY QUOTE
    "I confirm having been approached in the framework of
preliminary, non-binding talks on the future governance of Atos
in a consortium led by Mr Layani. I have decided, given my
current responsibilities, not to take this further," Richard
said in a statement.
    
    WHAT'S NEXT
    Atos' assets have attracted the attention of Layani and
Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
    French company Thales  TCFP.PA  has also said it could be
tempted by Atos' defence assets.
    
    BY THE NUMBERS
    Once a flagship technology company included in the French
bluechip CAC-40 share index, Atos grew quickly through
acquisitions but later made strategic mistakes against a
backdrop of unstable governance
    Atos' shares have slumped around 70% so far in 2024. It has
an equity market capitalisation of around 220 million euros and
had net debt of 3.9 billion euros as of March 31.
    Atos has also said it needs 1.1 billion euros in cash to
fund its operations over 2024-2025.
    

 (Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by
Sonali Paul)
 ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com))