Yves Bernaert, 55, formerly Accenture Technology Europe, has been appointed CEO of French IT group Atos, the latter announced in a press release on Wednesday.
His appointment took place during a board meeting on Tuesday and “his inauguration is effective today,” the group said. “It will be proposed to the general meeting to appoint him administrator.”
The board “has chosen a manager with recognized skills in the technology and digital transformation sector,” adds Atos, which considers that “after having completed the internal operational separation of Atos into two different entities in July 2023, the group is now prepared to carry out your transformation.”
Yves Bernaert’s main mission will be “to carry out the next stages of the transformation plan and accelerate the recovery of the group’s activities”, indicates the latter.
Separation into two entities
Built through acquisitions by its former boss Thierry Breton, Atos has suffered heavy losses since leaving the European Commission in 2019 and is trying to restructure its activities.
A first project to sell 30% of the subsidiary Eviden, which brings together cybersecurity, supercomputers and cloud activities, failed due to the lack of a firm offer accepted by the group.
The project evolved this summer with the signing of an agreement in principle with Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky for the complete sale of the historic outsourcing activity (Tech Foundations) and a capital increase for Eviden that would involve the dilution of minority shareholders.
Some of them oppose this project, which must be put to a vote by shareholders before the end of the year at an extraordinary general meeting. No date has been set.
“In the event that the board of directors decided to finalize the separation,” Yves Bernaert “would be exclusively responsible for the development of the new Eviden group,” Atos specifies in its statement.
Source: BFM TV
