Atos Moves Forward With Bull Takeover

IT firm Atos has taken the next step in acquiring fellow French company Bull, filing a draft public offer with French authorities.

The offer, submitted to French finance authority Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), targets all Bull’s outstanding shares and instruments.

Last month, Atos placed a €620m (£502.15m) bid for Bull, a move welcomed by both companies that they claim will improve their positioning in the European cloud computing market.

Now, Bull investors Crescendo Industries, Pothar Investments, The Orange Group and Banque Publique d’Investissement (BPO) have agreed to tender all their shares to the offer as well as expressing support for the deal.

This brings the total amount of shares to be tendered to Atos’ offer to 35.5% of Bull’s share capital.

Atos is offering €4.90 (£3.97) per share in cash for each Bull share – a 30% premium on the firm’s three-month average share price and 22% higher than the closing price for shares on the day Atos made its offer (€4.01/£3.25).

Acquisition Part Of Atos Longer-Term Plan

The acquisition of Bull is part of Atos’ “2016 Ambition” 3-year plan, a document that outlines the firm’s strategy to place itself as a leader in cloud services in Europe.

Atos also intends to position itself as a leader in managed services and systems integration, which the company claims will further increase its business impact and the relevance of its offerings.

The firm hopes that buying Bull will help it to increase its offerings in cloud services, Big Data and cyber security, while enhancing its position in France and other areas such as Spain, Poland, Africa and Brazil.

© 24N.biz