(Reuters) -French IT firm Atos stuck to its annual outlook on Thursday, sending its shares up more than 5%, even as its loss-making IT business weighed on third-quarter sales.
The group, whose market value has slumped in recent years, is in talks to sell IT division Tech Foundations to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky in a 2 billion euro ($2.11 billion) deal, an alternative to an earlier turnaround plan to split the company into two listed entities.
It posted quarterly revenue on Thursday of 2.59 billion euros, down 3% organically from a year earlier due to a 7.2% decline in Tech Foundations. Its remaining business, Eviden, posted organic growth of 2.3%.
Atos reaffirmed its full-year targets for organic sales to come in at or up to 2% above last year’s level, and for an operating margin of between 4% and 5%.
Its CEO Yves Bernaert told reporters on an earnings call he had no comment on opposition lawmakers’ calls for the nationalisation of the group on national security grounds, which earlier this week raised doubts about the planned deal with Kretinsky.
The proposed deal would give Kretinsky a 7.5% stake in Eviden, which includes the lion’s share of Atos assets that the French state views as potentially strategic, such as cybersecurity and supercomputing.
The group’s supercomputers are essential for nuclear test simulations, and its software can be found in Scorpion tanks and Rafale fighter jets.
Atos, formerly led by European Union industry chief Thierry Breton, has seen its market value plummet by 86% over the last five years after accounting errors and heavy losses under previous Chairman Bertrand Meunier precipitated a share price fall.
($1 = 0.9483 euros)
(Reporting by Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk; Editing by Milla Nissi and Jan Harvey)
