Atos picks Onepoint restructuring plan in blow to Daniel Křetínský

Troubled French IT services company Atos has chosen a restructuring plan led by its largest shareholder, Onepoint’s David Layani, over a rival proposal from Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský.

The Paris-listed group said on Tuesday that it would work with a consortium led by Onepoint, an IT consultancy founded by Layani, and a court-appointed mediator to finalise a deal by next month.

Layani and Křetínský have spent months vying for control of Atos, a former star of the French tech industry that has struggled to stay afloat under a €4.8bn debt burden. The group’s shares have collapsed over the past three years.

Under the proposal from the Onepoint consortium, about €2.9bn of debt will be converted into equity while €250mn of new funds will also be injected into the company. Roughly €1.5bn of new debt will be provided, including €300mn of bank guarantees.

Shareholders will be massively diluted under the plan, but Layani’s pitch was to keep Atos largely intact and under French control. Shares in Atos were down 12 per cent in early trading on Tuesday.

“Today is an important milestone in our financial restructuring process. A solution has emerged, which aligns with the interest of the company’s stakeholders, particularly our employees and clients,” said Atos chair Jean-Pierre Mustier.

This is Křetínský’s second disappointment on Atos after an earlier deal, which would have seen him buy the group’s lossmaking legacy business, fell apart in February.

Explaining its decision to pursue Onepoint’s proposal, Atos said it had creditors’ support and “thus gives greater confidence that a definitive financial restructuring agreement will be reached”.

The Czech businessman, who built his fortune by buying up unloved energy assets in eastern Europe, has been rapidly expanding his portfolio in retail, media and logistics in countries including France, Germany and the UK, where he recently did a deal to buy Royal Mail.

Separately, the French state is seeking to acquire three parts of Atos that are deemed of importance to national security for up to €1bn.

They include super calculators for quantum computing that are used by the French army for the country’s nuclear weapons programme as well as certain cyber security assets.

The company and state officials are conducting due diligence, according to people familiar with the matter, and the process is expected to take several months.

The government would need to bring in partners to operate the businesses, and they could include Bpifrance, the country’s state-backed investment bank, for the quantum computing assets, one of the people said.

Defence companies including Thales have also long been circling Atos and could yet help run some of these assets, the people said.