2024-09-26 10:00:03
Stunned by the 90% drop in Atos shares since the beginning of the year, the IT group’s shareholders are seeing the final blow coming. Called to a meeting on Friday, September 27, at 2 p.m., they will have to decide on a debt restructuring plan that promises to make them lose what little they have left: once it is implemented, they will hold only 0.05% of the capital, unless they agree to put 233 million euros back into the pot. In this case, they would keep 25.75% of the shares.
Shareholders do have the option to vote against the plan. However, bankruptcy law, reformed in 2021, allows for a “forced application” of the procedure. They therefore lost the game to the former creditors, mostly banks and investment funds, called upon to become the future owners of the second French IT services group behind Capgemini. They themselves had to vote on the plan before Thursday, September 26.
The result of their vote should be known by Friday at the latest. Approval is almost certain: it was the creditors who drew up the debt restructuring plan, compared to the one presented before the summer by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
Deterioration of results
Even if other legal steps must follow, such as the judgment of the commercial court validating the accelerated safeguard procedure (a decision expected towards the end of October), the vote of the shareholders and creditors marks the end of two years of turbulence and twists of all kinds: plan to split the activities, aborted sales discussions with Airbus, unfulfilled interest in a buyout by entrepreneur David Layani, abandonment of the split project, changes of CEO (four in total), deterioration of results… To end with an explosion of debt, forcing Atos to place itself in conciliation procedure, on March 26.
The completion of this restructuring is a relief, but paradoxically opens up other challenges, just as complicated. Financial, first of all. Around 2.8 billion euros of debt, out of the 4.9 billion that the group was burdened with, are erased, converted into shares for the benefit of creditors. However, the remaining 2 billion or so of debt have been renegotiated at higher rates than before, between 5% and 9% per year.
Above all, if the creditors who have become shareholders are prepared to provide €1.5 billion in new financing, this will contribute to increasing the level of debt again and will be extremely costly: between 10% and 13% of the sum made available. Will Atos, whose activity has suffered enormously during these long months of upheaval, have the means to properly repay this debt, even if it should recover at least €700 million from the sale currently being negotiated with the State of its most sensitive businesses in the military and cybersecurity sectors?
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