France's Atos to launch reverse stock split to restore investor confidence

By Gianluca Lo Nostro and Pauline Foret

(Reuters) -Atos will launch a reverse stock split, likely to take effect by May 1, CEO Philippe Salle said on Wednesday, as the French group seeks to restore investor confidence following the completion of a vital financial restructuring plan last year.

The reverse stock split plan was nearly unanimously approved at a general meeting in January.

Shares were trading down at all-time lows, around a third of a cent, after the IT company completed a 233-million-euro ($248.49 million) capital increase last year, resulting in massive shareholder dilution.

"We'll need to approve it at a board meeting in the next few days, and will launch the process immediately afterwards," Salle said at a post-earnings call.

Atos reported annual revenue of 9.58 billion euros, down 5.4% year-on-year, missing its previous forecast, as market weakness and contract terminations weighed on its business.

But it signalled an improvement in its order intake again after clinching lucrative deals last year, including a 165-million-euro extension with Eurotower and an agreement to build Finland's newest national supercomputer.

The French group did not issue any outlook for this year, but said Salle would present his vision and mid-term strategy on the company's Capital Markets Day event on May 14.

Atos was worth around 10 billion euros at some point in the last decade before plunging into a debt crisis, spurred by unstable governance and a botched split project. The company currently holds a market value of 600 million euros.

The French state is in exclusive negotiations to acquire Atos' advanced computing activities, which are vital for national defence, as the company owns supercomputers used for France's nuclear deterrent and military communications.

Salle, who took the helm last month and is Atos' sixth CEO in two years, said the company would not sell other assets this year.

"We're not going to rip the group apart, we have roughly 2.2 billion euros in cash, we don't need more," he said.

He added that he has no ambition of asking for a higher price for its mission critical systems business, which is also up for sale, despite rising military spending in Europe.

($1 = 0.9376 euros)

(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)