Atos: none wants the French cybersecurity company, but the French gouvernment will protect it

Atos is a French digital services company (ESN), founded in 1997. It is one of the 10 largest ESNs worldwide, with annual sales of almost 11 billion euros in 2019 and around 110,000 employees in 73 countries. The group, the European leader in cloud, cybersecurity, and supercomputing since its takeover of Bull9, has been in CAC 4010 for four years, from March 2017 to September 2021. Atos has been the worldwide IT partner for the Olympic and Paralympic Games since 2001.

The group is huge, gigantic, elephantine, loss-making, and in need of capital injections. The company’s stock price has plummeted and i

s little more than one-seventh of what it was two years ago.

It is a French disaster, but it is a matter of national security, and the French are very serious about this kind of matter. The Macron government tried to arrange a wedding with the European aviation group Airbus, a heavyweight in the world aerospace industry. It was a pure political move, but it was a failure.

The Airbus group announced on Tuesday that it is ending discussions with Atos for the acquisition of its Big Data and Security business, in a statement.

“After careful consideration of all aspects of a potential acquisition of Atos’ BDS (Big Data and Security) business, Airbus has decided to no longer pursue discussions with Atos on this potential transaction,” the European aircraft manufacturer said.

In a separate statement, Atos confirms Airbus’ decision and says it is “analyzing the resulting situation.”.

On the stock market, this announcement was poorly received by investors. Atos shares fell by nearly 25% on the Paris Bourse. After a few minutes’ trading, the share price was down 24.65% at 1.62 euros per share at around 9.05 a.m., representing a loss of 77% in 2024 alone. Airbus shares, meanwhile, were up 1.81% at 166.18 euros, the biggest gainer on the CAC 40.

Reuters reported that France “would protect the strategic assets of Atos,” but no one wants to take care of this costly mess. It seems that the Macron government will have to open its pocket and pay with its own money.