PARIS (Reuters) – French IT firm Atos spooked traders on Tuesday with a plan to separate its operations and promote property in addition to the departure of CEO Rodolphe Belmer, sending its shares plunging by greater than 25%.
The departure of Belmer, who took over in January, follows weeks of studies of board divisions over revamping the corporate.
Belmer and the board clashed over the destiny of cybersecurity unit BDS, sources near the matter have mentioned, as he was prepared to promote the enterprise whereas the board needed to retain it.
Atos is deemed strategic by the French authorities for its high-tech property such because the manufacture of supercomputers and software program utilized by the military and the finance ministry to handle tax assortment. Former prime minister Edouard Philippe sits on its board.
Belmer’s departure was introduced simply an hour earlier than a capital market day that traders hoped may restore confidence after a sequence of setbacks that had worn out two-thirds of Atos’s market worth over the previous yr,
Belmer, the previous boss of satellite tv for pc firm Eutelsat, will go away Atos on Sept. 30. Atos shares fell as a lot as 27% in early Paris buying and selling, and had been down nearly 19% as of 0931 GMT.
On Monday, they fell greater than 10%, following a media report about its future technique.
The weak spot of its shares have made Atos a subject of takeover rumours. A finance ministry official mentioned the federal government was carefully monitoring developments and famous strategic property had been protected against hostile takeovers by a decree on screening international investments.
SPLIT-UPAtos plans to separate into two publicly listed entities and mentioned it had appointed two deputy CEOs, Nourdine Bihmane and Philippe Oliva, to steer every of those.
The cut up could be at “unlocking worth” as a part of a broader plan that might value an estimated 1.6 billion euros in 2022-2023, the corporate mentioned.
Atos will promote property price about 700 million euros, Belmer mentioned on Tuesday in a name with reporters.
It has already bought its 2.5% stake in funds firm Worldline as a part of its disposals plan, elevating 220 million euros.
As a part of split-up, Atos is contemplating spinning off and mixing BDS with its companies operations, notably these at serving to prospects transfer to the cloud.
Dubbed Evidian, these operations mixed generated 4.9 billion euros in income in 2021, up by 5% from the earlier yr, and an working margin of seven.8%.
The remaining a part of Atos will embrace its declining and loss-making IT infrastructure administration companies, which had gross sales of 5.4 billion euros final yr.
Atos mentioned it’s time to return to progress and earnings for these actions by 2026.
Requested if he would profit from the two-year severance pay authorized by shareholders in case of an abrupt departure of the CEO inside two years, Belmer mentioned he had proposed to depart with 9 months price of wage.
Beforehand the boss of Vivendi-owned pay-TV station Canal+, Belmer had promised a brand new begin for Atos after a sudden lack of traders’ confidence following reservations expressed by auditors over the accounts of two US entities and a failed try to accumulate a US firm hit investor confidence.
The overview of the 2 US entities revealed no materials misstatement, Atos has mentioned.
(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; extra reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Nicolas Delame; enhancing by Bradley Perrett and Jason Neely)
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