Atos stumbles again as French government says 'non' to rescue deal
- Reference: 1728305452
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/07/atos_french_deal_fails/
- Source link:
Atos, which is embarking on a restructuring plan after suffering several years of declining revenue and rising losses, says the non-binding confirmatory offer it received from the French state expired on October 4, without the parties reaching an agreement.
That offer, which was mooted earlier this year but [1]officially received in June , would see the Paris government take control of certain strategic assets from the ailing business to ensure they remain under French control, for which it was willing to stump up €700 million ($748 million).
[2]
These comprise the Advanced Computing, Mission-Critical Systems, and Cybersecurity activities of the BDS division, which are involved in IT projects for the French military and other areas of the public sector.
[3]
[4]
Atos says it has offered to continue discussions and sent the government a new proposal compatible with its financial restructuring plan. The latter was put together based on an assumption that these activities would be preserved within the Atos Group, and the expiry of the offer has no impact on the wider financial restructuring process, it claims.
The company will issue a further update should these discussions prove successful, but it warns that any potential sale of BDS assets will be subject to regulatory approval by the Nanterre Commercial Court, where Atos is due to submit an accelerated safeguard plan on October 15.
[5]Atos secures funding for rescue plan, lives to fight another day
[6]Atos shuffles debt around as curtain call nears for restructuring saga
[7]Atos's UK auditor raises 'material uncertainty' about future
[8]Atos in chaos as bailout talks unravel faster than you can say 'restructuring'
Atos finally [9]secured funding from its creditors in July for a restructuring plan to rescue the company following a roller coaster few months in which a previous deal with Atos's largest shareholder [10]fell through . The consortium it was part of withdrew from discussions in June.
Attempts by Atos to raise revenue by flogging parts of the business to other interested parties also [11]failed , with Euro aerospace biz Airbus withdrawing its offer for BDS in March, and negotiations to sell the legacy IT operations to Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský and his EP Equity Investment (EPEI) similarly [12]collapsing in February .
[13]
These moves follow an ill-fated attempt announced by the company a couple of years ago to [14]reorganize itself into two separately listed companies , with the BDS operations trading as Eviden (initially Evidien), and the legacy Datacenter and Hosting, Digital Workplace, Unified Comms, and Business Process Outsourcing operations to be called Atos Tech Foundations (ATF). ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/14/french_state_still_wants_atos_stake/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZwQFpXKFsntpXb-3spx37AAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZwQFpXKFsntpXb-3spx37AAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZwQFpXKFsntpXb-3spx37AAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/atos_secures_funding_for_rescue/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/04/atos_reaches_final_deal/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/27/atos_uk_going_concern/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/atos_restructure_deal_fails/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/atos_secures_funding_for_rescue/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/atos_restructure_deal_fails/?td=keepreading
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/30/airbus_abandons_atos_stake_buy/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/28/questions_over_atos_finances/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/hpc&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZwQFpXKFsntpXb-3spx37AAAAMw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/20/atos_cfo_to_follow_ceo/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
HOW? Just HOW?!
How do these firms lose money or struggle? They LITERALLY are charging double the price of a normal employee for a chunk of additional staff that aren't needed as well as well over the odds on the hardware and software.
They've all been pumping work overseas while charging the same amount.....HOW?
Seriously no sympathy for any of their clients if ATOS DO go to the wall....should be hiring permies and contractors internally rather than this outsourcing "reducing risk" bollocks!
Re: HOW? Just HOW?!
Agree, however there is a reason that we used to call them "Atossies" or "Atossers" when having them on a project.
Re: HOW? Just HOW?!
The work that is outsourced (mostly to India) is of such poor quality that it is inevitable for the decline to occur. The execs just think they are going to make a killing initially by outsourcing. Siemens had a internal IT services division that they sold off to Atos over a decade ago. Even IBM spun off their IT services division (look at the story of Kyndryl (also struggling) which IBM spun off on Register), IT services and consulting is on the decline as we embrace our new over hyped overlords, the AI for our consulting needs.
Re: HOW? Just HOW?!
Easy.......choose your preferred order...
1 Bonuses for those at the top.
2 Expensive lunches and "entertaining" prospects.
3 Brown envelopes
Seriously no sympathy for any of their clients if ATOS DO go to the wall....should be hiring permies and contractors internally rather than this outsourcing "reducing risk" bollocks!
The rationale used to be "cost savings", until it was obvious to any fool that most outsourcing costs more than in house. Then it was "skills" with the client pretending that the vendor had some secret recipe of magic sauce, although few believed that other than directors signing the cheque. Now it's "risk reduction", which as ATOS are demonstrating is simply untrue.
But big businesses will keep on outsourcing business critical stuff, because the real rationale for any outsource is one single reason, that it involves any work that the company can't be arsed to manage itself. Obviously that's never mentioned or written in the meetings and documents that initiate any outsource, but it's fundamentally true.
By outsourcing work, what a company is saying is "we can't be bothered to manage this activity, and we don't care what standard the work is done to, nor really how much it costs"
What gives?
It would sure be nice to see some progress on this dossier, especially since, as noted in the brand new [1]Photonics21 – European Technology Platform report on photonics in HPC: " EVIDEN, a part of the French ATOS group, is the only European vendor of HPC systems, holding approximately 10% of the system share in the TOP500 list ".
The five largest of current [2]Top500 HPC vendor shares are: 1- Lenovo (33%); 2- HPE (22%); 3- EVIDEN (10%); 4- DELL (7%); 5- Nvidia (4%). And EVIDEN is #2 in performance share: 1- HPE (36%); 2- EVIDEN (10%); 3- Lenovo (7%); 4- Fujitsu (7%); 5- Nvidia (5%).
Let EVIDEN/BDS or Atos sink and Europe loses its HPC significance (esp. in manufacturing). It'd be like losing ESA, Airbus, CEA-Leti, ASML ... not good!
[1] https://www.photonics21.org/download/ppp-services/photonics-downloads/Photonics_for_High_Performance_Computing_(HPC)_FINAL.pdf
[2] https://top500.org/statistics/list/
Violin
The tiny violins appear to be sold out...