Paul Saleh a fait plus de mensonges en 1 mois de DG Atos que Meunier en 4 ans de présidence. Ou presque…
Lors d’une conférence call en anglais, il a rassuré les 732 tops managers d’Atos que les liquidités étaient excellentes et que S&P allait prochainement upgrader la note tout juste dégradée.
Avec la dégradation ce vendredi 8 de S&P Ratings de B- à CCC, il n’en faut pas plus pour comprendre la vraie nature de Paul Saleh, un mercenaire assoiffé d’argent pour qui la fin vaut tous les moyens, y compris des mensonges éhontés à tous ses collaborateurs (et je ne parle même pas des actionnaires) !!!
Comme quoi, les médailles d’or, que ce soit pour le pinard ou pour les CFO, c’est toujours bidonné…
Tout d’abord le call audio, plus la transcription écrite, qui a couté 80€ au blog.
===
This is a certified transcription of the call of Paul Saleh, on January 19th with 732 Atos & Eviden top managers.
The blog owns the full sound recording as evidence.
We have decided to disclose it, as there are many information that should have been disclosed to the market and they are many lies from Paul Saleh about the reality in particular about the BDS deal.
Indeed, people close to the talks with Airbus think there is between 75% to 80% chances the BDS deal reach to a a final agreement, whereas when you listen to Paul Saleh, it sounds more like there is 95% chances.
Paul Saleh mislead his staff, about Atos capability to face his near term obligations and short term obligations.
We, at the blog Atos Bourse according our information, believe that Atos has only liquidity for its short term obligation and if the BDS deal doesn’t occur, Atos could be in a situation of claiming for the french equivalent of Chapter 11 protection (cessation de paiement), which of course would not go to a bankruptcy as such size of companies don’t bankrupt, they are dismantled.
Our internal information, which is of course not any official Atos communication is that the company is really short of cash and if the BDS deal doesn’t occur, Atos would have to delay of about a week, the march salaries and pay them in the first week of April instead of March 28th as usual.
===
The call is divided in one part which is the Paul Saleh speech and the other part is the Q&A with the managers that will be put online during the week-end.
PART 1/2 : Paul Saleh speach
PAUL : 0:00:00
During in January of 2023 on liquidity, we find ourselves just about a year away from major maturities coming due and particularly our bank debt. We have a billion five of bank debt that is maturing in January of 2025. But we also have maturities that are coming right after that. Some in May, 750 million. And then we have a revolver credit line of 900 million that also comes to be renewed sometime in November of 2025. So a series of maturities that we have to address. Originally, the plan that we had presented to the market was really meant to address all of these issues.
We were thinking about three main points. The first one was, as complete that sale of TF to EPI, in the process of that, we would be raising as a second step some capital in the form of equity. There were about 900 million of equity that we were going to be raising. And we were working with our banks to just get a new financing of about a billion euros and a renewal of our credit lines in the future that would have given us the ability to address all these maturities that I had mentioned.
So what’s changed? What’s changed is that the EPEI transactions is taking longer to close. We had all of our banks, not all of the banks, but our tier one banks aligned to really give us what we had asked from them. But we felt that we needed to move in different directions because we did not believe that we could actually raise capital fast enough from the equity. And we’re not 100% sure that whether or not our shareholders would approve a raising of capital.
And so as a result of that, during the late December timeframe and into the early part of January, we ended up agreeing with Airbus to sell our BDS business. That was not really our first choice from the very, very beginning. But however, realizing that we were coming within the window of about 12 months, we wanted to provide clarity for everyone that we had the means to address the maturities coming in, as I mentioned to you, starting in 2025 and January 25 with our banks. So the sale of BDS now is just really a key element in our refinancing plans in addressing what so many people term our liquidity. We have enough cash to meet our near term obligations throughout 2024.
So when you have to refinance the 1.5 billion, we did not have enough ability to just clarify how we would do that. So the sale of BDS just really enables us to do just exactly that. So the next step after that is just to work also with our banks to be able to refinance again the amount of debt that they have extended to us and is maturing in 2025. So we’re asking them to move out and give us a new financing that will basically replace the 1.5 that’s coming due in January and the revolver or the credit lines that is coming to expire in November of 2025, just really giving us new facilities that will extend in time, giving us time just basically to sell the BDS business and reimbursing them or paying down the obligations that we have with them. So when you go back and put it all in perspective and you say to yourself, well, what do I tell my clients?
The first one on the liquidity perspective, I realize that there’s a lot of uncertainty and over the next few months, we’re going to be providing clarity on that, meaning that we do have liquidity right now to meet our near term obligations. We are selling the BDS business to provide us with the capital in a sense to meet our maturities that are coming in 2025. And in addition to that, we’re working with our banks to extend basically their maturities in time.
So those are the three key elements to just reassure our clients that we’re going to be fine, we’re working to just really provide that clarity from a liquidity perspective. In the interim, unfortunately, it doesn’t really stop some of the stories that you’re going to read and that appear in the papers or on blogs or people thinking that we are in trouble. In fact, one thing I would add to our clients, if you’re talking to them, is that we went out of our way to provide them to provide the market with clarity that we are meeting our financial guidance. I think thanks to all of you, we met our revenue targets for 2023 across all three business groups and lines of business. We also met the guidance that we gave them on profitability.
And we also came slightly short of our objective of having flat free cash flow in the second half of the year we came in, we missed it by about 100 million, we believe. We’ll know more about it, but it’s just about 100 million, some of it due to deals that slipped into this new year. So net-net liquidity is going to be fine. We’re working, we have a plan, we’re executing on that plan. Second of all, we do have liquidity or cash on the balance sheet to just really meet our near term requirements.
[Ndlr: according blog information it is more likely short-term obligations and not near-term.]
Lastly, we have the business is meeting its guidance as we have said publicly. So we want to reassure our clients as well as our employees that we have the means to continue to commit to meet our commitments to them, to reinvest in the business, to attract and retain the talent that’s necessary to support their business. And I realize that we can say it, but until we do it, it’s not going to really lift the uncertainty that comes with this environment. So let me also mention therefore a couple of other things that are happening right now. The next thing that a client is going to ask is, well, how about this separation and the sale of Tech Foundation and where do we stand there? Are we going to just really be able to do it?
My point a little bit to you there is that it’s been much harder than we had anticipated. We were hoping to get this whole thing wrapped up by the end of the year of 2023 is turning out to drift and it’s because of some of the complexity of the terms that we were asking the other party to accept and revise. Some of them were designed to be simplifying areas. In other cases, they were designed to clarify terms that were not as well articulated.
And in some other areas, we were just asking for additional compensation, given the fact that the deal itself was going to be extending into instead of closing in end of 2023, it was going to happen in some time in the March, April timeframe. So those things individually may be solvable, but you take them collectively. The other party was really pretty slow at accepting many of these terms. And we have not yet reached a point where I can tell you with confidence that we’re going to get there. And we’re preparing the market to say, you know, we may not, given all these uncertainty, we may not be able to conclude this transaction as we had originally anticipated and we will know that over the next few weeks.
So expect us to just really provide updates on the market. Hopefully we’ll be able to close it. If not, then we will be coming back and say that those that deal may not happen. Let’s also I know a lot of you will say, well, what then what would happen? What would we tell our clients? I think Carlo and I are working on that. I would tell you right now what we’ve been just focusing on and Carlos taking the lead on that is that we will continue whatever happens to operate separate businesses for the time being. And we will leverage, we’ll put a plan in place to leverage the combined capabilities that we have with the two businesses to serve our clients and win new business. One thing that we realized when we were talking to our negotiation with EPEI is that there was a benefit to having the two companies understand the perimeters of each other.
But also we were realizing that we’re missing on opportunities because we were not really leveraging each other’s strength in providing services to some clients. And we’re trying to go at it alone in some cases. And in doing so, we were missing the mark and our clients were just really not necessarily confused, but finding that they could, you know, we would on a standalone basis, each one of us in the businesses be less effective than if we were together seeking opportunities.
So whether we do the EPEI transactions or we do not do the EPEI transactions, we’re going to continue to try to put a plan in place to leverage the capabilities of the two businesses so that on a combined basis we would be better off than going at it alone. So, Net, what can I also tell you is happening? So we had our meeting with the banks this week. We expect now to be dealing with the banks in the coming weeks. I think our objective is to have something clarified sometime in the March, April timeframe. I think publicly it’s March.
I believe that that’s the objective anyway to move as fast as possible because we recognize that with this uncertain environment, many of our clients are going to be, you know, have choices and they may just really say, well, I have to commit this business to someone and I’m not really sure where you’re going to be. And they may just really push to go somewhere else or delay decisions.
So we recognize all of these things. And we’ve been pushing our banks and even our Airbus as well to just move as fast as possible so that all these transactions can be clarified very, very rapidly. So banks, we’re meeting with them. We’ve met with them. They’ve organizing or meeting with them all throughout next week and with the objective of getting something by the March timeframe.
We also have started the engaging with the BDS for the sale of the BDS business. So in a confirmatory due diligence, it’ll start in earnest next week and we will have management presentation with the objective of trying to get a binding agreement by the mid March to late March timeframe. And then the business, if approve, if sorry, if we reach that final binding agreement and the pricing, then it will be subject to regulatory approval until it closes. So it’ll take probably anywhere between nine to 12 months before this transaction actually indeed close.
Which leads me actually to on this front to ask each one of you, because you just really lead the troops in front of clients to continue to operate as if the business is ours because it is still ours. OK, so we are going to continue to offer services and to integrate offerings of cyber security or other type of artificial intelligence or other things that are part of the BDS business. We will continue to offer them to our clients. That’s the objective, right? We’re not moving away from that. Consider it part of the family of offering that we have.
And also understand that we will work with Airbus to come up with a partnership that will maintain that continuity of services that we’re providing to our clients and also impacting the product roadmaps that we need for our own business. So we are not going to be cut off from the ability to totally leverage the BDS capabilities that would be conveyed to Airbus. And we’ve been talking to them. We haven’t inked yet the partnership, but it is part of our objective and Carlos taking a very, very attentive look at what construct will that take. Same thing, I think on the TF side, I think we’re going to continue to, as I mentioned earlier, just really find ways of combining forces, whether it’s on the cloud pursuits or on modernization so that our clients doesn’t really think, you know, which way should I go? We’ll try to just really ease that for them in going forward.
So take a kick away liquidity. We understand the issue of refinancing. We’re working on it.
We have enough cash to deal with obligations near term.
We’re performing as we have indicated and meeting the guidance that we have given. Hey, there are some deals that we have to execute on. That be still up in the air.
BDS is in due diligence and we’re going to proceed with that. We have confidence that this thing is going to close and we’ll keep updating our clients as fast as possible, realizing that time is our enemy in this environment.
And lastly, I expect the rating agencies to downgrade us further because from their perspective, it is less about our fundamental position in the marketplace as much as the uncertainty, whether or not this BDS sales will take place, whether the banks are going to be refinancing us or not. So in an element of uncertainty, the rating agencies take a view that’s what they’re paid for. They take a very, very conservative and even cynical view of outcomes. So they will downgrade us further. And if they do, they will also say in their report that they will upgrade us if and when we announce the sale of BDS and the refinancing with our banks. Right.
[Ndlr: Paul, you forgot to mention S&P could also downgrade… It is said clearly in their communiqué.]
So this is it. In a nutshell, I know that is a lot of information coming your way. I think the one take in summary and I’ll take any questions you may have. First and foremost, thank you. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate the board. Carlo and I appreciate all the effort that you’re doing. We recognize your own incredible pressure to be able to deal with clients as well as employees and competitors that are going after our business. And we’re counting on you to hold the fort for us to hold the position for us and calm everyone around you and including family members. I may be asking who what’s really going on with a toss.
Thirdly, just know that we are working to answer those questions very, very rapidly and give everybody a comfort that we have a resolution that the business will be fine and we will be able to resume the execution of the strategies that we had pursued. Maybe not exactly how we had hoped it from the very beginning, but it will be in a construct that makes sense for our employees, for our clients, as well as for our shareholders.
And lastly, we have to continue to operate from a business perspective, just really working hand in hand with our BDS colleagues and hand in hand with our TF and Everton colleagues to make sure that we are just really integrating the offering in front of the customers, that we just really give them the best that we’ve always had bringing a toss together as a company in front of the customers, even though we’re going to continue to operate separate businesses and some businesses may be conveyed to a third party. We will just really always work to preserve the strength that came from having these products all integrated.
All right, with that, I’m just going to thank you and turn it over to, I think maybe, if I remember, maybe Paul or Carlo may have some comments they want to add, but otherwise we’ll take your questions. No, there was one comment from Paul, I think. Paul, you want to take the word? Yeah, thank you. Confirm. Thanks, team.
SPEAKER :
Senses of Sales community, we’re all on the phone.
PAUL PETERSON : 0:17:22
I just take one moment to remind you that deals signed in 23 and 24. Need to be uploaded in ACM. So, this is part of the requirement for it to count towards your commission and BSC payments. And we’re a bit late. In fact, quite late for 2023. So, I offer you all a grace period at the beginning of next week. It only takes a few minutes to upload the contract. Let’s make certain, and I would ask you to get that done rapidly so that there’s no discount in the future. So, please, a few minutes Monday, Tuesday, and let’s clean that backlog and then keep it rapidly updated as you’re closing and signing contracts in 2024. So, thank you for that.
CARLO :
Thank you for doing it. I have to say, if I add to our BDS friends, it’s important for the data room. So, we do need absolutely this to be done by Tuesday because, I mean, we need all those elements to form our data room as well. So, it’s important. Thank you very much.
PART 2/2 : Paul Saleh reply to his managers questions
A MANAGER :
Thank you for all for this transparency and this very clear status, even if we still know the level of uncertainty, as you explained. What would be good for us, for our team is, could we get all this wording, all your pitch in writing for us to be much more comfortable when we are facing customers just to avoid miscommunication, let’s say. We have to be precise and for us to be precise, you know, it’s not our job to be,… we are not CFO guys.
CARLO : 0:19:21
No, no problem.
We will do this and I propose that we add two elements.
One, the script that we call the official script and then we’ll give you below what you can say orally to specify. There are things that are always complex to put in written. So, we’ll give you the official speech plus what you can say orally when pressed or when pressed who don’t want to know more. You’ll have it.
A MANAGER :
Good. Do you know when? Next week?
PAUL :
I think by early part of next week we’ll have it to you.
CARLO :
Yes.
PAUL :
I think what I would suggest to you that what you’re going to see and I think we’re going to try, to try to see, I’m turning to Clay, Mah (?) and others, try to get it to you on time for the weekend and maybe early part of Monday because what’s going to happen is that if the rating agencies take actions, which I believe they will, we do not want to have you unprepared come Monday to just really deal with another set of questions that may come from procurement offices or they may come in from clients just trying to seek a little bit like, oh, what does that mean.
Right? Even though it may be expected, any new news tends to be on the negative side these days. Robin? Andy, sorry, Andy.
PAUL SALEH :
Paul is okay.
A MANAGER (called Paul) :
Hi Paul, probably a naive question, but is there any reason that we can’t extend the terms of the bank ahead of time?
PAUL SALEH :
Yeah, I think what it is, right now we had our 1.5 billion, right? We had the right to extend it to six months period all the way to January 25. After that we do not have any rights. We have to get all the banks to agree to come up with a new refinancing. It has to be a new refinancing to qualify for all the things that we’re doing with them. So they all have to work hand in hand and agree to basically the same thing as an extension, but it’s in the form of a new financing that we want to push out until 2027.
PAUL (the manager) :
Thank you.
A MANAGER :
I guess an observation, I heard some worries from the client I looked after this week and I actually reached out to them and they were very grateful for the proactive dialogue to hear from us. I think I’m sure everyone’s doing it, but it’s really important that we own that dialogue with the client rather than them getting it from elsewhere. On what you’ve just said out, is there anything we can’t talk to the client that you’ve just gone through? Is it any bit sensitive or is it all part of the story we can talk to them about?
PAUL :
Everything that I said is absolutely, you able to share. Absolutely everything !
[Ndlr (blog) : Thanks Paul to allow me to share this]
A MANAGER :
Hi Paul. I have a question. I’m working in BDS, MCS, SAIDs for the defense and the airspace and our customers are expecting long term stability. In the last year or so we had a lot of changes in the management team. What would be our message to convey stability going forward? Is this something that you are considering as part of the messages that you will share with us? Thank you.
PAUL 0:22:55
Yes, I think just to, thanks for your question. I think it’s obviously something that our track record doesn’t really support a lot of confidence in whatever we say about the future that we’re done with management changes of sort. But I would tell you that both Carlo and I are committed to lead the effort with all of you going forward. As far as the mission critical kind of work that is being done, I think I do believe that all the clients right now recognize that going to Airbus, if that transaction is going to complete over the next couple of months, I think that’s going to be perceived as a positive rather than just uncertainty.
CARLO
And Paul, I would like to add something here. When press and customers ask me that, I also tell them look at the operating team and the management that works on you and the stability you have there because I think that the turmoil has been more at the level of the group than at the level of the operations. Just look at it in each and every case, but if you have this, this can help to show there is continuity there.
A MANAGER
Does it impact our ability to procure equipment from our suppliers given the credit line discussions?
PAUL :
Yeah, I think it’s interesting you mention that. I think I do believe that we’re going to have to brace ourselves to a lot of clients being a little bit more nervous suppliers, being more nervous about extending some terms to us about equipment given our financial situations and wanting to have potentially better terms or shorter terms. So we’ll have to deal with that.
That’s one reason why, again, we’re just trying to maximize basically the cash usage that we have right now, making sure that we’re collecting on time. This is where we just really are cautious about where we’re spending money because the moment money goes out the door, we need to make sure that we have enough cash to go through near term, all the obligations as I mentioned that we have.
So right now we haven’t seen any concern expressed.
We’re working over on our commitments that we have made to vendors, just trying to fulfill them. And we’re going to have to watch our cash position tightly until we get the resolution from the banks. So we will also have to add the additional capacity to support the business during this transition period. And so we’ll see where we get with them on that.
A MANAGER :
Thank you very much for this direct communication, which is much appreciated.
I am literally trying to sign a renewal of a contract agreement with XXXXX. I need to get it signed today, but they want a support letter or warranty letter coming from Atos Group. And they didn’t want to hear about splitting Atos and Eviden together, I guess, because they’re a lender. That’s right. So I guess I’m a bit worried about the, besides the fact that I need to get this warranty that may land on your desk today. I’m a bit worried about the rating agencies, because even though they signed the contract, if the rating agencies change the rating, and I’m not quite sure when this would happen, that we still have the ability to sign more business with them. They have internal mechanism where they rate the suppliers. And when the suppliers go below a certain rating, they have a business freeze. I recognize that.
PAUL : 0:27:08
First of all, thank you for that. A couple of things. Number one is we’re dealing right now with the senior people at the bank. I deal with Alan Pappias, who is like his number two at the bank itself. So we’ll have that dialogue about it. He’s well aware of the potential for downgrade. If the downgrade occurs, it will occur within the 24, 48 hours. I think that’s what my understanding is, if they take that position. I realize that it’s going to put more pressure on us getting business. I am not confused by that, as I mentioned, because a lot of people would be, you know, read that as another negative news, per se.
But if we’re going to have to point out to certain areas within the release where even the rating agencies are going to be pointing out the fact that they will upgrade us again if we can go through the BDS transactions as well as the bank refinancing. It’s less about whether the EPI transaction takes place or not. It’s more about whether the refinancing and the BDS transactions occur. But we’re there to support you and I will talk to leadership. We’ll reach out to them sometime early next week. That was the plan anyway.
A MANAGER :
Thank you very much.
PAUL :
And by the way, Carlo and I are just really offering you also at any point in time, if we need to get personally involved with anybody at board levels or at senior levels, C-suite to reinforce the message so that they hear it directly from me or from Carlo, we are just absolutely available to do so.
CARLO :
And by the way, I wanted to add that as I, as Paul pushed me to do, I think it’s important from the February onwards, I’ll be more on the road to be in the US, to be around Europe, to be probably in Canada as well in order to try to do things personally. I just want to add, I think it’s important that we all accept that our customers as us have rational and also emotions. So the more we are present physically, the more we do that with them, the more it will help. So you will see me on the road more and more to be of support and do whatever I can to convey the messages with you.
A MANAGER : 0:29:35
Hi Paul. So thank you very much for this really helpful conversation and all the information.
They will help us in our discussions with my customer, XXXXX, tomorrow. Next week we have our meetings with the global procurement head and I feel well prepared.
But to be honest, I don’t feel well prepared when I talk to my daughter. And if she’s asking me, is there risk of getting Atos bankrupt? What’s the answer?
PAUL about debt and group possible restructuration : 0:30:05
I think there’s a variation on the theme.
I think, let me just actually, it’s interesting you mentioned that, but for the interest of the team, there was some news at one point that we were going to what they call an ad hoc mandate. And so if you read it in the press, let me just really demystify it for you. What it is, is that you’re going to a court that appoints a, basically think about it as a mediator. And the role of the mediator is just really to facilitate conversations between two parties.
And so if, for example, things stall with the banks and we feel that the benefit is to just really go and have a mediator that can kind of accelerate the discussions, because so many times that’s what their role is, then you just really do that. That doesn’t mean that, hey, we’re just in trouble, but it is a mechanism used for that.
There’s another mechanism that people mention, which is called consolidation. And what that means is that, again, it’s a little bit more advanced in a sense that the mediator in the first place, and this is a place where they are actually that party that is acting on behalf of the tribunal in a sense, has a little bit more authority to force people to do certain things. So that’s the second level of, you know, it’s like in war game, death com one, death com two, or whatever you want to call it.
The last one is just really what they call safeguard, which your daughter’s asking, hey, is there a possibility that the company may find itself in that predicament? It’s just also it’s only when all these other type of activities have not borne fruit and you are just absolutely stuck. That is when the tribunal, in a sense, or discussions come up with a very quick solutions to just really try to bring everybody together. But then in this case, is there forcing the outcome in all cases?
Let me just make sure that you understand a bankruptcy in the form that people are talking about is one in which the company re-emerges very quickly with all their with a different set of creditors, where the bondholders and the people have given, you know, extended debt to the company with what they call get their debt converted into smaller amount and another amount in equity. Right.
So that’s not that it’s not the elimination of the company just stop existing. It’s just really exist in very quickly with a different form of a capital structure where the debt holders become owners and their obligations get reduced.
And there are a whole lot of example. I’m just giving you there are a lot of example of companies that have just really emerged well and perform extremely well post that process.
So that that we want to go there is just to give you the sense that we’re trying to find a solution, as I mentioned to you, that is really reasonable for everybody, which is the one that is currently on the table.
But there are a few mechanisms along the way that can be used to just really expedite a resolution. So you can tell your daughter that is not right now in the cards.
And right now, the management have confidence that they’re going to be able to steer the ship and avoid having to use that mechanism.
And again that’s a difference than total bankruptcy where you just really liquidate everything and the company’s to exist. This is what we’re talking about. So if you’re talking about Sauvegarde, the company still exists, but the capital structure is reorganized. It’s much more like every organization that is if you think about it.
Hopefully you can talk to her. I don’t know if she’ll understand. If she doesn’t understand, fully translated the answer is no.
I think that’s right. Now the company is not going to get there.
A MANAGER : 0:34:05
OK. Hello Paul. Before we go crash, I was wondering about how safe is the BDS plan and whether there is a deep line behind it and this kind of things. Is there any rebound we should we should look at? You understand that ?
PAUL :
Yes. No, I think actually, of all things, the BDS pipeline is very, very strong.
I do believe that one of the elements that was a little bit impacted was more on the cyber security where some of the because of the separation of the two businesses, some of the business that used to come directly from TF had, you know, dried up a little bit. But if I look overall, particularly on the HPC side or the advanced computing side, I think the backlog has been as strong as it’s ever been. Right.
So and then for the performance for 2023, the business has been really very close to performing as they had anticipated. So now I think we’ve had our reviews with Airbus and then I think we’re entering, as I mentioned, into this confirmatory due diligence. And then sometime next week, we will start the management presentation. Carlos been really meeting with the management team and guiding them through it. And I think it will go well.
CARLO :
The question was that was on a plan B.
Paul Apologies was asking if by any chance it didn’t happen. Do we have plan B? Sorry.
PAUL :
I don’t know that it’s one of those things that we already activated a plan by selling them in the first place. I do believe that right now we have strong enough confidence because the board of Airbus has already seen this thing, has already been comfortable in showing the pricing in the marketplace.
And then a lot of the a lot there’s a lot more momentum behind this thing to occur. This is a business that’s a really strong and very valuable business. So I’m pretty sure that that’s goes go through if in the next couple of if we sense that there is something wrong, which I don’t believe in this case will happen, then we will huddle very quickly as we huddle very quickly in the December time frame to get a reach an agreement with Airbus. We’ll find another solution.
A MANAGER :
Hi Paul. Good afternoon.
Question as one of your major shareholders with 500K stocks in my wallet. I’m also looking at the future.
If you look at future requests, a lot of our customers are asking for ratios in their request, financial ratios like solvability and liquidity. Is there a plan for the future how we can meet debt request answering tenders or other requests from our customers?
Because often if you don’t can positive answer that questions, you will not go through the next phase. So is there a plan?
PAUL :
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I think what you will find out very quickly is that we are going to meet all of our ratios for this year anyway, even though we have confidence with our banks for a debt to cash flow ratio of 3.75. And we will be within that fine and no problem there. As far as other ratios, we will provide those in due course, I think, particularly as we report our financials in November, sorry, in February of 2025.
Right in the next six weeks or so we will be reporting our results.
PAUL about goodwill major impairment to come on February 29th :
But the by the way, actually, one of the things I’m just teeing up with you because it’s already in the marketplace so that you understand it. That’s going to be another we end up we have a whole lot of goodwill on our company in our company with a lot of goodwill on our books, you know, because of the acquisitions that we have made over time, including Syntel and so many other bull and others. And as a result of that, we may have to impair that goodwill, meaning it’s just really it’s a this is the amount that usually that you pay over the value of a business when you buy it, if you pay a premium for it. And so given where the stock price is today, we may have to write it off.
[Ndlr: (blog) The Goodwill impairment of a subsidiary has nothing to do with the group stock value. This is totally inaccurate statement, or to say different, a big lie, just not avoid to mention to have kept these goodwill in the past were Meunier’s illegal behaviors to keep these unjustified goodwill in Atos books.]
And again, it’s an accounting entry rather than economic really touching liquidity or anything like that. I mentioned that just in case I you know, you hear something about it.
A MANAGER 0:38:48
Hi, thank you, Paul, again, to repeat the openness and taking the questions that you’re taking much appreciated.
Similar question to Jeffrey earlier short-term deals where we’re coming under pressure to demonstrate that we are financially viable. Is there a mechanism we can address through to you, which we can do repeatedly and quickly because obviously what we don’t want to do is to lose the short-term business. And if we can.
But typically the processes in Atos Eviden or so to get any approval up to the senior level to do anything significant to reassure customers. Is there a way in which we can shortcut that process so we can address these things and not lose business over the short term?
PAUL :
I think I mean, obviously that makes a whole lot of sense. I leave it with Carlo and you know, if I think maybe we should just really have a way to look at it to see if we can shrink that review process.
I have there’s a lot of things, by the way, that Carlo and I are looking at. I think we didn’t get to it yet, but we’re going to try to simplify life. If I really look at the time that we’re spending internally talking to each other and comparing notes with each other instead of spending time with the client. I think it’s a rebalancing act that we have to make.
And so we’re trying to simplify our governance internally and some of these things, Tom, if you can suggest things that could really help. By all means, we’re going to just really be open to it. We’re going to streamline things that are so cumbersome these days.
CARLO :
Paul, if you agree, I think we need another 10, 15 days to go to complete this work and governance methods to our meetings, to our approaches and to rainbow and see what we can simplify. We are clearly working on this and the main objective is to see to simplify it for the sales and pre-sales teams that need to stay with customers more and more because of the situation.
I would propose if you agree that we have another meeting like this in 15 days so that we say what we are doing in this direction, because we need to do that. We’ve been doing it well. It’s as important as doing it fast because we do it wrongly. So we need, I think, 10 to 15 days to finish the work.
PAUL 0:41:09
I want to go back to Tom’s ask. We’ll put it on the note here and then follow up, Tom, and just making sure if you can shoot to me at least a note to what exactly is slowing things down typically or what exactly, I’ll just make sure that we address that. OK ? And I think I would like to build on something. I care about you. Yeah, I want to build on something. I know that’s not the intent.
But we’re also looking, Carlo and I, away on the commission side to also just really bring the two teams together from TF and for evident on some joint pursuits because everybody’s just always want to be taking credit or saying, well, if I don’t get credit for it, I don’t want to spend my time because my time is so precious.
We’re trying to find ways to just really bring us so that we’re less, less trying to sort things through internally, but just align everybody’s interest to just go serve the customers and the company to win. So wait for us to come back with something for you to so that you be incented properly as well.
A MANAGER 0:42:15
Hi, Paul and Carlo. Thanks for your openness and transparency. I appreciate this communication.
I think this is in continuation to Tom’s question. We are, I’m working on a very large deal with the Ministry of XXXXX in XXXXX that both of you are aware of. And we are starting the contract negotiations on Monday morning. So we really need this communication, whether the in writing and the oral ones to be ready over the weekend.
And we’d appreciate if we can have sort of a direct line support through those two days because I’m just now getting more worried if this credit ranking is being, is becoming public before we start our client meeting for such a large deal on Monday it will even make our…
CARLO :
Call whenever you need. Call. You’ll have it. Call whenever you need.
PAUL :
and I’m available. I’m available also. All over the weekend for you. So call, Carlo and I will make time this weekend.
CARLO 2 0:43:18
As I said, let’s try to see when you seek is the right moment, I would fly for Canada at night and come back the night after if needed for that. So you just, we just agree. And, you know, I’ll hope on a flight to be with your customer. This is a very important deal for us.
A MANAGER :
I really appreciate it, Carlo.
PAUL :
We say that also at a time at XXXXX it is as cold as can be.
…Laughts…
CARLO :
It is. You didn’t tell me that, Paul. You didn’t tell me that. Come on.
A MANAGER :
Just speaking from XXXXX, currently minus 20 degrees Celsius.
PAUL :
Lovely city.
A MANAGER :
Yeah.
PAUL :
Marcus ?
MARCUS 0:49:14
Yes, thank you. I’m heading an operational unit.
So one one remark, Paul, is that I mean, we not only have salespeople in front of the customer, we have like 70% of our staff standing in front of our customers. So we need to also reassure everybody of what you’re saying. So thank you very much. It helped me to transfer this to my staff. One question that I have, I mean, we have a new brand here with EVIDEN. in the corporation and which is, I mean, partly known. But my question is, do we continue now in this situation to promote this brand, for example, towards fairs, you know, broader, broader public? What is the plan regarding marketing? Because that’s what’s lacking it for a year or so since we have the brand. We cannot really, you know, go forward and make it more public. And that’s a very good question.
PAUL about marketing : [Ndrl : Please note that PAUL is lost when a question is not about finance]
I think you can imagine, with all the things that are happening right now, we’re just trying to prioritize where we spend the money. And so I think we’re going to have to wait a little bit to sort out whether or not what’s going to happen over the next few weeks. Right. For example, if the for example, if the does the deal takes place or not, how is our with videos now being sold? You know, do we use the name just for digital or not?
So there’s a little bit of work to do. But in the scheme of things right now, the priority is such as one as the things that I’ve mentioned to that we need to execute on the back side of it, like the sale of videos and the banking renegotiation. And also to give you are you all of you on the call with enough information that you stand confident, not only, as I mentioned, in front of the client, but equally with the public. [Ndlr (blog): Thanks Paul. Done]
And also equally with our employees as to be able to comfort them because they look to you to see if it’s going to if it’s going to be all right.
And I can tell you it’s going to be all right. And then the third thing is at home also just being in your friends when you go for drinks or meals to be able to also say the companies are going to be all right. I think we’re dealing with a difficult period, but we’ll emerge collectively out of it.
I would come back to the marketing in due time.
MARCUS :
Thanks.
PAUL :
Clay ?
CLAY 1 0:51:39
year we’re gonna have to wrap up here. And but I had a couple of questions, a couple of questions I thought that might summarize help you summarize real quick. But before we do that, Jenny, do you have a do you have a quick question we can do and and then we’re going to have to call it.
JENNY :
So Paul, I run the telco and the public sector business for TEFCo and Eviden in the Americas. My question was in the event that the EPEI transaction does not happen and you know how will we be structured as we move forward? Will we continue to remain as two separate units within the same company or any any thoughts on that?
PAUL :
Yeah, I just… maybe again in this spirit of what may have been going so fast that it wasn’t really properly registered. But I did mention that if the EPEI transaction does not go through, we will continue to just operate as two separate lines of business. Right.
But we are going to take steps. And you’ll hear more from Carlo about it a little bit later when we firm up those plans. We’re going to take steps.
We were thinking about taking steps to leverage the capabilities of the two companies as we are presenting ourselves in front of the clients instead of coming across as two totally, totally distance relative that have not seen each other for so many long period of time. We want to just come across as one in one motion in front of some of the customers, not in every case, but where it’s necessary so that we can continue to serve their needs so that they don’t have to think that we are a totally disjointed.
JENNY :
Excellent.
CARLO
And there are topics like cloud. I don’t want to take time now, but there are specific topics like cloud, AI, cybersecurity, where we are working in order to secure and reinforce the position seen from the TF customers. So we’ll work on that. We’ll give you, you’ll see strong support in the direction.
CLAY VAN DOREN 0:53:38
OK, we have to draw to close.
Philippe, I see you just came up with a question. If you ping me on IM, I will get you an answer to whatever; to whatever your question. I’ll talk directly to Paul and Carlos.
So first of all, Paul, thank you for this, you know, the sincerity, the transparency. We’ve talked about a number of things we have to do right over the next period of time, right. And to hit a new level of stability.
When do you think we hit that new level of stability, right?
Recognizing there still will be. So when if you would bring it all together, is it kind of the April, May annual shareholders meeting where we think we’ll be in a different spot or if I were to bottom line the various activities?
PAUL :
Yeah, I do believe like if you said to me, for example, hey, when can we are all the fog will lift, for example, right? Totally.
I do believe it’s just going to be probably in the May or so timeframe if I had to guess a little bit.
But I would tell you one thing, though, that would be very encouraging that you will see much faster along the way things that will give you basically clear indication that that fog is lifting. So along the way, there’ll be clear markers.
If BDS transactions is confirmed. I think you can just really again rest assured to to even more so for people inclined that this is moving in the right directions. If the bank can give us where we need to go and that’s progress takes place. It’s just going to be affirming as well.
So all things don’t have to all come together to be totally done. But enough in a sense is like a remodeling of a house. I think you will see that there are enough progress that you’ll feel that the end of this construction period is about to end.
CLAY VAN DOREN :
Sounds good.
Final question, which is a little bit TF related because I’m getting pinged behind the scenes. So we’ve talked a lot about the Eviden performance, what we need, but BDS, what do you need from the TF community?
I mean, leaving the wholesale aside for a second. What do you need out of them?
PAUL :
I think it just really I know that everybody was gearing up in almost to just really take a, you know, lift off, so to speak, and just see the transaction take place and and eager to make it happen.
And whatever happened next, as I can tell, but even in case one or case two, whether it goes through or doesn’t go through, what I need the folks to make is just really stay focused and we’ll figure out something that really makes sense for everybody. Not be rattled one way or the other. I think, I think we’ll we’ll be fine.
I think the leadership, particularly of TF, is so critical to our long term success. You’ve done a remarkable job, an amazing job turning around the company, turning on the respect, the perspective of that, what that business can do relative to the competitors, maintaining that pride and commitment to the client. And I think we’ll be fine. We’ll find something that works.
CLAY VAN DOREN
Fabulous. I think if it’s OK with you, Paul and Carlo, we need to wrap there.
PAUL :
All right. Thank you so much again and look forward to our next opportunity just to update you on what’s going on.
====
Restez automatiquement averti à chaque nouvel article du blog, au rythme maximal de 3 fois par semaine. Inscrivez-vous à notre NEWSLETTER. Cliquez ici. Vous pourrez vous désinscrire à tout moment. Nous utilisons un pluggin officiel WordPress agréé CNIL.
