Disaster-hit agency behind important NHS companies faces unsure future

The British arm of Atos, the French expertise firm that could be a important provider of the NHS and UK authorities departments, is going through a “materials uncertainty” over its means to proceed as a going concern, auditors have warned.

Within the newest accounts for its UK holding firm overlaying 2022, the corporate’s auditor, Grant Thornton, stated monetary issues going through its mother or father firm in France may restrict the UK arm’s means to entry money and proceed as a going concern.

In April, Atos UK’s mother or father firm revealed total debt of nearly €5bn, and was taking a look at monetary restructuring affords to stabilise its funds.

The auditors’ findings, first reported by The Occasions, additionally warned that if the mother or father firm did not efficiently meet or renegotiate loans or promote property, the UK arm may face being unable to settle its personal liabilities.

Atos is likely one of the UK authorities’s 40 strategic suppliers, a gaggle of chosen contractors that maintain billions of kilos value of contracts with authorities departments.

In line with researchers on the information agency Tussell, Atos has virtually £1bn of income coming from 43 contracts, together with offering IT methods to the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, and the Division for Work and Pensions.

Nonetheless, the federal government has been monitoring Atos’s monetary issues and the i newspaper has reported that the federal government has drawn up contingency plans to keep up public companies if Atos is just not in a position to meet necessities. They reportedly embody lining up different potential IT suppliers if Atos is unable to run these companies.

The struggling French IT agency has confronted a turbulent few years because it has tried to deal with its rising debt pile. Throughout that interval, shares within the firm have dropped 97% in worth, whereas it has additionally had 4 chief executives in two years.

Included in its fundraising plan it has tried to promote elements of the enterprise, with the French authorities providing €700m to purchase essential property from its safety and information divisions this month.

The corporate can also be making an attempt to strike a rescue deal that will restructure its debt.

On Wednesday, it revealed it had obtained a brand new restructuring deal from a committee of bondholders after discussions with a consortium of traders, led by David Layani’s Onepoint, broke down.

Within the 2022 accounts, which had been written earlier than the latest restructuring proposals, Grant Thornton stated the broader difficulties and uncertainty in regards to the firm’s restructuring meant for its UK arm, a “materials uncertainty exists that will solid vital doubt on the corporate’s means to proceed as a going concern”.

A spokesperson for Atos stated: “Atos is at the moment present process a monetary restructuring, which is able to create a secure monetary future globally and within the UK.

“The supply of companies to our prospects has remained unaffected and we are going to proceed offering high-quality companies to the UK private and non-private sectors, as now we have for over 30 years.”