French tech company Atos SE, which is in crisis, has received an offer to help rescue the company, which will form the framework for talks with stakeholders regarding its restructuring.
David Rayani's OnePoint, Atos' creditor group, private equity firm Bain Capital, billionaire Daniel Klechinski and credit fund Attestor filed a proposal last week, the company said in a statement on Monday. mentioned in. The company decided not to proceed with discussions with Bain Capital because the private equity firm's proposal did not meet Atos' objectives.
Atos reached a restructuring agreement with its creditors on May 31 and expects to reach a final agreement by July 2024. Chief Executive Paul Saleh is aiming to rebuild Atos, which was once one of the nation's leading tech companies before a series of setbacks sent it into recession. On the verge of bankruptcy. The company said it needed to raise 1.7 billion euros in new capital to fund its operations through 2025 and reduce debt by 3.2 billion euros.
Atos said discussions are ongoing with the French government regarding the acquisition of strategic businesses. Atos said the company has reached an interim financing agreement of 100 million euros ($108 million) with bondholders and is in discussions with banks and the French government for the remaining 350 million euros.
Details of Krechinsky and Attestor's joint proposal were first reported by Bloomberg. Atos said on Monday that details of the offer will be published on its investor relations website.
The original proposal submission date has been pushed back by a week, and the injection comes after Atos reported that debt issues drove away customers, delayed agreeing new contracts and negatively impacted its 2015 financial results. and the need for debt reduction was revised. first quarter.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said earlier this week that the government had made a proposal to buy some of the businesses it considered strategic.
Still, previous plans to raise money by selling assets failed. Separate negotiations between Airbus SE and Krechinsky stumbled earlier this year, forcing the French government to intervene with an interim loan. A court-appointed mediator is currently proceeding with mediation procedures with creditors.
Atos provides information technology services to major government departments and the nuclear industry, among others, and has been contracted to provide cybersecurity for this summer's Paris Olympics. The company has grown rapidly over the past decade through acquisitions, adding supercomputing and cybersecurity services to its IT offerings. But investors began to balk at the spending, and in 2021 auditors discovered accounting errors at two of the company's U.S. subsidiaries.
Meanwhile, analysts argue that Atos has missed the industry-wide shift to cloud-based services, alienating some customers. The company's stock price has plummeted, down about 97% since the start of 2021, and restructuring efforts have failed, leading to a CEO change.
Mr Saleh, Atos' fifth chief executive in less than three years, is confident in the negotiations so far and said in an interview last month that he believed the company could be saved. and characterized the dialogue with creditors as “very, very difficult.” positive. “
