Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky Eyes Atos Unit in a €2 billion deal

There are discussions underway for Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky to purchase Atos’s unprofitable legacy operations in a deal worth €2 billion ($2.20 billion). Over the past year, Atos has been restructuring its operations to try and reduce significant losses. The sale will enable Atos to concentrate on its cybersecurity and data division, Eviden.

While the lawmakers’ concerns were “legitimate”, they would prove to be unfounded, the spokesperson said. “We fully understand the strategic importance of Eviden’s services for France, and we intend to fully respect national sovereignty in this area,” the spokesperson said.

The struggling French company is in talks to offload the Tech Foundations legacy IT infrastructure business to Kretinsky’s EP Equity Investment. As part of a deal under negotiation, the European software firm will get €100 million ($110 million) in cash and transfer €1.9 billion in debt to the buyer.

The sale has been approved by the Atos board of directors, and will now be put to shareholders at an EGM to be held in the fourth quarter of this year.

Following the sale, Atos also plans to strengthen its balance sheet with a €900m share issue, in which EPEI will participate.

Once the sale is complete, Atos is expected to be renamed Eviden SE, though the Atos brand will live on as a parent company through which Eviden will be listed on the Paris Stock Exchange.

The deal would also give the billionaire a 7.5% stake in the remaining business, which would be renamed Eviden.

“We won’t increase our shareholding (in Eviden) beyond the announced threshold, and we will play no active role of any kind, still less exercise control,” Daniel Kretinsky‘s spokesperson in France said in a statement sent to Reuters. By contrast, Kretinsky wishes to be a long-term shareholder in Tech Foundations, Atos’s legacy IT operations, the spokesperson said.

Daniel Kretinsky made his fortune in the energy industry and is the majority owner of Energetický. He is the chief executive officer (CEO), Chairman of the Board of Directors (executive position), and 94% owner of Energetický a průmyslový holding, a.s. (EPH), the biggest energy group in Central Europe, co-owner and president of football club AC Sparta Prague, and director and major shareholder of English football club West Ham United.

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