By Diana Mandia
(Reuters) – Atos said on Tuesday it was considering further asset sales to address its capital raising plan and debt maturing in 2025, and was in talks to modify the terms of a deal to sell its Tech Foundations business to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
The IT service provider said it was considering accessing capital markets and the sale of additional assets to tackle the capital raising plan, a 1.5 billion euro term loan maturing in January 2025, and 750 million euros in bonds maturing May 2025.
It is also in advanced negotiations with Kretinsky’s EP Equity Investment (EPEI) vehicle to “modify and simplify” some terms of its proposed 2 billion euro ($2.11 billion) sale of Tech Foundations, the group said.
Shares in Atos, which has seen its market value slump in recent years and has undergone numerous governance changes, were down more than 6% by 0948 GMT.
AlphaValue analyst Helene Coumes attributed the drop to “the endless uncertainty on the deal on Tech Foundations, the financing issues and how the change of some terms of the agreement will be favorable for the minority shareholders”.
The Tech Foundations deal would also see Kretinsky take a 7.5% stake in the group’s cybersecurity unit Eviden, which is what would be left of Atos.
S&P Global Ratings on Monday downgraded Atos’ rating to ‘BB-‘ from ‘BB’ on increasing liquidity risk.
According to the group, the impact of the rating downgrade on interest expense would be negligible.
(Reporting by Diana Mandiá; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Robert Birsel and Jan Harvey)
