The French government seeks to buy all of the struggling French tech giant Atos' activities that the state considers strategic, as the IT consulting firm strives to restructure its debt.
The government sent a letter of intent over the weekend, and an official at the Finance Ministry said on Sunday the state was targeting three of Atos' activities – advanced computing, critical systems and cyber products – deemed to have strategic importance.
Atos secures communications for the French military and secret services and manufactures servers to make supercomputers capable of processing vast amounts of data for research or to develop the nascent artificial intelligence industry.
Atos said on Monday it needs more cash than previously estimated to stay afloat and welcomes a government offer to acquire company activities linked to national security.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the aim was to prevent "sovereign activities" of Atos from "falling under the ownership of foreign actors."
Atos said the proposal values the businesses at between 700 million euros ($750.2 million) and 1 billion euros.
The entities, part of Atos' prized cybersecurity unit BDS, employ about 4,000 people and generate about 900 million euros of annual sales, the official said, speaking before comments by Le Maire in an interview with French news channel LCI.
"This weekend, I filed a letter of intent to acquire all the sovereign activities of Atos," Le Maire said, adding he wished to see other industrial groups join the French state's potential bid for the activities, without elaborating.
The consortium, led by France's state shareholding agency APE, would include other "French sovereign players," Le Maire said, declining to name them.
There has been speculation in the French press that defense groups such as Thales and Dassault Aviation could take part in a plan to safeguard the assets.
The aim is to build an offer by June, the official said, declining to elaborate on the estimated valuation the Finance Ministry had made in its indicative offer for Atos's entities.
The expected offer is not conditioned to the formation of a consortium, but the aim is to have one, the official said. It was not clear what exact stake the French state would get in Atos's activities.
Atos, which manages data and cybersecurity for the upcoming Olympic Games, is in the midst of a refinancing, which includes raising 1.2 billion euros via equity and new loans and will result in significant dilution for existing shareholders.
Shares in Atos, whose net debt stood at 3.9 billion euros at the end of March, have plummeted over the past two years after a string of profit warnings, a revolving door of CEOs, and the collapse of potential asset sales, notably BDS and its legacy operation Tech Foundations.
Le Maire's announcement sent shares in Atos surging 14% after the Paris stock exchange opened. They have tumbled by 70% since the start of the year.
Atos said it now needs 1.1 billion euros in cash "to fund the business over the 2024-25 period," up from a previous estimate of 600 million euros.
