(Reuters) -French IT company Atos on Thursday reported lower third-quarter revenue as good performance at its Eviden division was offset by the loss-making Tech Foundations unit.
Atos is in talks to sell its legacy IT division, dubbed Tech Foundations, to Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky, which would end its initial turnaround plan to split the group into two listed entities.
The company’s new CEO, Yves Bernaert, told reporters he would not comment on opposition lawmakers’ recent calls for the nationalisation of the ailing group, which raised doubts about the planned deal that would give Kretinsky a 7.5% stake in the remaining business, dubbed Eviden.
Eviden includes the lion’s share of Atos assets that the French state views as potentially strategic, such as cybersecurity and supercomputing.
Atos posted quarterly revenue of 2.59 billion euros ($2.73 billion) for the whole group, down 3% organically and 5.3% on a constant currency basis from 2.82 billion euros last year.
The company confirmed its full-year targets for organic sales in line with last year’s or up to 2% higher, and for an operating margin of between 4% and 5%.
It still expects cash burn for the year to be about 1 billion euros.
($1 = 0.9483 euros)
(Reporting by Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi)
