Atos split: chairman of board resigns

On October 16, 2023, Atos announced the resignation of Bertrand Meunier, chairman of the company’s board of directors for four years. Jean-Pierre Mustier, one of the board’s independent administrators, will take his place. The French group took the opportunity to clarify that its split, which shareholders were supposed to vote for by the end of 2023, would not take place before the second quarter of 2024.

In June 2022, Atos stated its intent to split into two entities: Tech Foundations and Eviden. The former would take over the group’s traditional IT facilities management business, which is chronically in the red. The latter would bring together the company’s growing cloud, cybersecurity, supercomputer and quantum information activities.

Bertrand Meunier had been under fire since the decision, made official in August 2023, to sell Tech Foundations to Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský. Two of Atos’s shareholder funds filed a complaint with the Financial Prosecutor’s Office, accusing Bertrand Meunier’s board of having “deceived” them.

In August 2023, 82 senators also published an open letter in Le Figaro newspaper, speaking out against the potential sale. “Atos remains key to our current strategic autonomy, (…) and must absolutely remain under French control,” they wrote.