Atos - comment

Airbus have called off discussions about the acquisition of the BDS division at Atos, sending the shares and bonds tumbling.  This would appear to be a big surprise to Atos as they are now hastily reconvening their FY23 results that were previously re-arranged for tomorrow, Wednesday 20th.  Given the ongoing Mandat Ad-Hoc, the most plausible method of managing its upcoming maturities appears to be a Sauvegarde procedure.  Counterintuitively, this may marginally benefit bondholders as an accelerated timetable removes any remaining possibility that banks will take security.  We are still surprised that the near-term bonds are trading at a 5-10pt premium to the 2028 and 2029 bonds.