Airbus withdraws plan to acquire Atos Cybersecurity

Airbus said in January that it was in early stages of negotiations to acquire Atos' big data security business unit, with an initial offer of between 1.5 billion euros and 1.8 billion euros ($1.63 billion to $1.79 billion). announced.

“Airbus has carefully considered all aspects of the potential acquisition of Atos' BDS and has decided to no longer engage in discussions with Atos regarding this potential transaction,” the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.

Airbus called off the deal after Monday's Airbus board meeting, the people said.

The deal's collapse marks the second time in a year that Airbus has backed away from an attempt to acquire Atos' cybersecurity assets. This time last year, the European aerospace and defense company abandoned a bid to acquire a minority stake in Atos' $4.8 billion Evidian cybersecurity, big data and digital business (see: Airbus, Atos and Evidian Cyber ​​Arm agree to acquire minority stake).

Atos said in a statement on Tuesday that it is “analyzing the resulting situation and actively evaluating strategic alternatives.” The company has indefinitely postponed its 2023 financial results announcement.

Gartner ranked Paris-based Atos as the world's largest managed security services vendor in 2022, serving many public and private sector customers. The company is struggling to repay more than 2 billion euros in debt as customers migrate from on-premises IT services to cloud-based services.

With debt maturing in 2025, French companies are trying to sell assets to raise funds. The company earlier announced plans to sell its loss-making business unit, Tech Foundations, which focuses on managed services and hybrid cloud infrastructure, to Czech billionaire Daniel Kreczynski. That deal also fell through.

Reuters reported, citing unnamed Airbus sources, that the airline backed out of the deal, citing risks and concerns about Atos' infighting.