News

By Mathieu Rosemain and Sudip Kar-Gupta

PARIS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Talks between Atos and Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky over the sale of its loss-making legacy operations have collapsed in yet another twist in a more than two-year-long crisis saga at the French IT consulting firm.

"Discussions with EPEI on the potential sale of Tech Foundations have concluded with no deal reached," said Atos on Wednesday.

The collapse of the negotiations represents the first major setback in France for Kretinsky, who made his fortune in the energy sector and made frontpage headlines following a string of high-stakes purchases in the country.

Atos and Kretinsky's EPEI investment vehicle suffered no financial hit from ending the talks, Atos said.

A spokesperson for Kretinsky declined to comment.

Tech Foundations regroups Atos' legacy infrastructure management services, employs 52,000 people and generates more than half the group's sales.

The collapse of the talks over the sale of Atos' Tech Foundations comes as the company needs to refinance or repay part of its debt, which totalled 4.7 billion euros ($5.08 billion) at the end of 2023.

The company said this month that it might need to obtain new financing, increase its asset sales program or sell new shares or bonds.

Atos, which provided no update on parallel talks over the possible sale of its cybersecurity division BDS to planemaker Airbus AIR.PA, said it was postponing the release of its full-year earnings to March 20 from Feb. 29.

It said it needed more time complete an audit of non-cash good will impairment charges.

Atos reported a free cash outflow of 1.08 billion euros and full-year sales of 10.7 billion euros.

($1 = 0.9244 euros)

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Piotr Lipinski and Jason Neely)

((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com;))

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