The company is in danger of being toppled by an all-too familiar tale of debt-fuelled corporate misadventure and hubris. Much of the blame has rightly been laid at the door of Thierry Breton, a former French finance minister who led Atos for a decade until 2019.
Under Breton, who is now EU commissioner for internal markets, the company chased growth hard. A dizzying debt-financed deal spree boosted its market value but left Atos saddled with costly borrowings.
Being an Enarque means never having to say you’re sorry.
Ha ha ha always funny when a French company that lives off of EU rule breaking subsidies or corruption gets shafted.
Atos bought one of my ex employers. I haven’t checked to see lately if they are still in business.
Being an énarque means not having to give Atos.
Atos has a bunch of excellent people in its workforce but it is woke and led by incompetents looking after themselves only. They have been getting rid of the competent UK staff and replacing them with third world staff for years because they are significantly cheaper. I have some stories that you just wouldn’t believe.
The latest farce is taking Atos and splitting it into two so you ended up with twice the management overhead and converting a Tier 1 company into 1 Tier 2 company and a consultancy company. Their current customers who signed up for a company that could handle anything now have to deal with two companies or pay extra for the extra costs. I predict many customers will exit their contracts at a convenient point. The funny part was they brought in a consultant at significant cost to strategise a growth plan. He recommended a few purchases in growth areas but the board rejected that and decided to split the company. Totally out of the blue. The consultant refused to manage that and left so they did it themselves and what a mess they made of it.
It is a pity but the go woke go broke applies for IT companies that don’t deal with the public as well. The management will do fine but the workforce won’t do so well.
Another example of why France is a global economic powerhouse.