Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on Tuesday sought to end the controversy over the proposed spin-off of French IT group Atos, part of which will be sold to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, much to the dismay of minority shareholders.
“Even if the operation were completed, it would not have any impact in terms of control or blocking of rights over sensitive activities,” declared the Prime Minister when questioned in the National Assembly by the leader of LR deputies, Olivier Marleix, during the questions to the National Assembly. government.
In August, 82 LR parliamentarians called for keeping Atos “under French control”, especially since its subsidiary specialized in supercomputers is essential for nuclear test simulations and French deterrence.
“We are very attentive to guaranteeing that the sensitive activities grouped in the Atos BDS entity have the necessary means to continue their development within an organization that guarantees the protection of our interests,” explained the head of Government, who stressed that the State is not is a shareholder of Atos.
Strong restructuring
The project presented at the beginning of August by the group’s president, Bertrand Meunier, plans to sell the historic outsourcing activity (maintenance of IT parks) to Daniel Kretinsky, who will retain the Atos name after a major restructuring.
The rest of the activities (cybersecurity, big data and supercomputers, including Atos BDS) would continue to be listed under the Eviden name, but Daniel Kretinsky was offered to participate in a capital increase worth 217.5 million euros, and thus could become one of the main shareholders.
“Daniel Kretinsky is European. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in having asked him to invest in Eviden. When Siemens held 10% of the capital of Atos for many years, no one said anything,” Meunier said in September, in an interview with The galeryhighlighting that the public authorities have not imposed “any” veto.
Some activist funds and minority shareholders opposed to the plan that will dilute their stake are currently organizing to propose an alternative project, during the extraordinary general meeting scheduled by the group for the end of the year, but whose date has not yet been revealed. .
The battle was also taken to the legal level, with the presentation on Friday of a complaint for active and passive corruption before the National Finance Prosecutor’s Office and alerts were sent to the Financial Markets Authority, the Stock Exchange police.
Source: BFM TV
