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French tech group Atos said Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský and David Layani’s Onepoint have made offers to bail out the heavily indebted group as it races to strike a restructuring deal this month.
The Paris-listed group, which faces €3.65bn in debt repayments by the end of next year, said on Monday that it had received offers from four parties.
Křetínský, who had previously failed in an attempt to buy the oldest part of Atos focused on managing IT systems, has teamed up with London-based hedge fund Attestor on its new offer.
Onepoint, the largest shareholder in Atos, put forward a separate proposal backed by investment firm Butler Industries. US private equity firm Bain also made an approach, though Atos decided not to pursue the discussions, saying the offer failed to meet its objectives. The fourth offer came from a consortium of the IT company’s bondholders and bank creditors.
“Any solution will probably involve radical changes to the capital structure of the company and a significant issuance of new equity securities which will result in massive dilution of existing shareholders,” Atos said in a statement.
The group’s plight has deteriorated this year, with credit agencies repeatedly cutting its rating. It has churned through executives while its share price has collapsed more than 90 per cent in the past three years, giving it a market value of just €250mn. Its shares jumped as much as 12 per cent in Paris on Monday before giving up the gains to trade down 4 per cent.
In a sign of the worsening picture, Atos has recently upped its projected funding needs to stay afloat through 2025 to €1.7bn. The company said on Monday that a €100mn deal for short-term financing with bondholders had been agreed while talks with banks and the French government to secure an additional €350mn are ongoing.
Talks with the French government that would see the latter take control of assets deemed to be of strategic importance are also continuing, Atos said. France’s finance minister Bruno Le Maire has previously said the government had made an offer to buy key assets for up to €1bn.
The government wants to purchase three parts of Atos: super calculators for quantum computing, which are used by the French army for the country’s nuclear weapons programme; secure communications tech also used by the military; and certain cyber security assets. The company is set to provide cyber security services for this summer’s Paris Olympics.
Until recently, the government had remained at arm’s length from the turmoil at Atos, which is chaired by former UniCredit boss Jean Pierre Mustier, even as multiple attempts to restructure the company and sell assets fell apart.
As the company’s financial situation has worsened, however, the government has stepped in to provide a short-term loan and create a “golden share” that could be applied to the company’s strategic assets, allowing ministers to block their potential sale.