French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said at the time that the government had manifested its interest in acquiring all of Atos’ sovereign activities, and in an interview with French TV channel LCI said, “the goal is to for strategic activities to remain under French control.”
There was additional financial support in early May when Onepoint, an existing business partner and currently Atos’ largest shareholder, announced it had formed a consortium with French investment fund Butler Industries to invest in the company. It said at the time it planned to keep Atos together, focusing on the vertical integration of Atos’ businesses, which include server manufacturing, cloud hosting, infrastructure management, cybersecurity, and consulting.
“The aim is to seize the opportunity to build a French champion of large-scale transformations for businesses and public actors, with a turnover of €11 billion, for about 100,000 employees,” Onepoint said in its offer letter. “Cybersecurity will be an integral part of the managed services-to-infrastructure continuum.”
