Atos receives four offers of help

Those existing creditors — represented by a steering committee of bondholders and a coordinating committee of the banks that have granted Atos a $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) term loan and a $970 million (€900 million) revolving credit facility — pointed out in their offer letter that they are the de facto economic owners of the company. (The value of outstanding shares was about €225 million on Monday, down from a peak of over €9 billion in early 2021.) They expressed willingness to continue supporting the company in return for a say in who else invests and proposed a debt-for-equity swap that would leave existing shareholders with just 0.1% of the company.

Vertical integration

Onepoint, an existing business partner and currently Atos’ largest shareholder, has formed a consortium with French investment fund Butler Industries to invest in the company. It plans to keep the company together, focusing on the vertical integration of Atos’ diverse businesses, which include server manufacturing, cloud hosting, infrastructure management, cybersecurity, and consulting.

“The aim is to seize the opportunity to build a French champion of large-scale transformations for businesses and public actors, with a turnover of €11 billion, for about 100,000 employees. Cybersecurity will be an integral part of the managed services-to-infrastructure continuum,” it said in its offer letter.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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