Atos
More info
- Released
- 1997
- Type
- IT services company
A French IT group that bought its way to scale, ran the Olympics' IT and then nearly drowned in its own debt.
Formed in 1997 by merging the French firms Axime and Sligos, it combined with Philips' IT services arm Origin in 2000 and spent a while as Atos Origin. Under Thierry Breton, CEO from 2008 to 2019 and later an EU commissioner, it acquired Siemens IT Solutions, Xerox's outsourcing business, Syntel and, in 2014, Bull — supercomputers, plus a history as France's national computer maker.
Through a 2004 acquisition Atos inherited the role of Olympic IT partner and ran the results systems for two decades. The acquisitions, however, were paid for with debt, and in 2023–24 the share price collapsed while the company tried to split itself into Atos and Eviden. The 2024 restructuring handed control to its creditors — an unusual way to learn the difference between revenue and profit.