what are the “sovereign” activities of the IT group that the State wants to preserve at all costs?

In great financial difficulty, the IT group sees the State rushing to its aid to avoid seeing the former French flagship “pass into the hands of foreign players”.

Are there French musketeers to save Atos? The struggling French IT group has significantly increased its financing needs, in a new business plan unveiled on Monday April 29, after a disappointing start to the year in terms of its activity. In the midst of financial turmoil, the former flagship of French Tech – which is to be one of the technological pillars of the Paris Olympic Games this summer – has specified that it now needs 1.1 billion euros in liquidity to finance its activity in 2024-2025 (compared to 600 million euros previously estimated).

Faced with these difficulties, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire announced, on Sunday, that he had sent the struggling French IT giant Atos a letter of intent with a view to acquiring all activities “sovereign” of the group, in order to prevent strategic activities for France from “pass into the hands of foreign actors“, he declared on LCI.

Clearly, the State wants above all to avoid any leak of these strategic activities of the French company, because they relate to defense, nuclear power and cybersecurity. Atos notably owns supercomputers used for nuclear deterrence and contracts with the French army. French Defense also has contracts with Atos for its IT and communications systems.

Finally, the letter of intent from Bruno Le Maire, greeted with “satisfaction“by the group which ensures that such a commitment”would protect the strategic imperatives of state sovereignty“, targets servers used for artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other cybersecurity products. These activities “must remain under the exclusive control of France., insists the Minister of the Economy, on LCI. Hence this state acquisition project, at a time when Atos is in turmoil.

At the head of the group for around ten years, until 2019, the European Commissioner for the Internal MarketThierry Breton, insisted on France Inter that the company had assets “strategic for Europe“: “I didn’t want some of these assets to go into hands that weren’t European, that’s also why I acquired them. So I think it’s very important that it stays in Europe“, he explained.

A consortium of French shareholders

However, Bercy does not communicate the amount envisaged for this repurchase. But Bruno Le Maire’s office gives some orders of magnitude: the targeted scope generates around 900 million euros per year, or less than 10% of the Atos group’s turnover worldwide. According to Bercy, nearly 4,000 Atos employees work for these activities. They are mostly based in France.

The fact remains that the State does not want to embark on this project alone: ​​it wants to convince industrialists to join in. Bruno Le Maire explains:take the initiative, because it is the role of the State to prevent sensitive technologies from depending on foreign interests”. But the Minister of the Economy does not intend to nationalize these activities. He wants to detach them from Atos to manage them in a new company, with major industrialists. It would ultimately be like what already exists, for the companies Naval Group and TechnicAtome, in the naval and nuclear industries.

The goal is to partner with giants, “because the State is not intended to manage this type of activity alone“, according to Bercy. The government is therefore increasing discussions in recent weeks, with defense or aeronautics groups among others. A major criterion: the shareholders must all be French. The government is taking a new step in its commitment. : to save Atos, he had so far committed to lending 50 million euros to the group.

The government will now discuss with the company’s management and intends to submit its takeover offer by the beginning of June 2024. According to Atos, if an agreement is reached, the proceeds of the transaction will not “should not be received before the 2nd half of 2025“.