Preliminary talks are currently underway around a minority stake in the deal, the newspaper Les Echos reported on Monday, citing several unnamed sources. An Atos spokesman confirmed talks about a minority stake in Evidian with potential future shareholders. However, these are at such an early stage that nothing more can be said about them. A spokesman for Airbus declined to comment on “market rumors or speculation”.
Atos shares jumped in Paris by more than 12 percent to 10.13 euros. The IT service provider announced last summer that it would consider splitting it into two listed parts, one for processing large amounts of data (big data) and one for cyber security – Evidian.
The ailing core business with IT outsourcing and management would continue under the Atos name. Evidian is considered to be the future business of the previous group structure. After selling its own IT business to the French in 2011, the largest shareholder in Atos is the German Siemens group. He recently held just under 5 percent of the shares.
Despite sanctions, Iran will receive four used Airbus aircraft
Despite current sanctions, Iran has received four used passenger planes to replace machines in its aging fleet. The Iranian aviation authority confirmed on Friday that four planes have arrived in Iran. “The four Airbus SE (ex EADS)-340 planes have arrived in the country and will soon be used in civil aviation,” a spokesman for the authorities told the news portal Khabar-Online on Friday. He did not say how Iran was able to acquire the four planes despite the sanctions.
According to consistent media reports, these are aircraft that were retired by Turkish Airlines in 2019 and then parked by the new owner company at Johannesburg Airport in South Africa. Turkish Airlines initially did not comment. Like “Bild” and the news portal, among others t-online as well as several industry portals reported that all four machines with license plates from Burkina Faso are said to have started in Johannesburg last week. Officially, an airport in Uzbekistan should be headed for. However, the planes landed in Tehran.
The spokesman for Iran’s aviation authority admitted that the purchase of new passenger planes had become extremely difficult for Iran because of the sanctions. Therefore, the country must drive “with the lights off” in this regard. The term is used in Persian for improperly conducted business.
Iran has had problems with its passenger planes for years. Unofficially, it is said that most planes are still Boeings from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The civil aviation authority also has problems with spare parts, since those for Boeings in particular are no longer supplied by the USA. According to reports, almost 60 percent of the more than 330 aircraft in the country have already been grounded.
After the Vienna nuclear agreement, the then moderate government of President Hassan Rouhani concluded a billion dollar deal in Paris in 2016 between Iran’s state airline and Airbus. For this purpose, 100 Airbus machines should be delivered to Tehran. At that time there was another deal with the French-Italian manufacturer ATR. There was also talk of a deal with Boeing, at least for the delivery of spare parts.
But because of the renewed nuclear dispute with the USA, Iran only got 16 machines from the two manufacturers. Since then, according to persistent rumors, Tehran has been trying to get hold of used Airbus aircraft through foreign shell companies. The deals were never confirmed.
On Monday, the Airbus share was temporarily up 1.42 percent in XETRA trading at EUR 112.96, while the Atos share on the EURONEXT in Paris rose by 17.07 percent to EUR 10.55.
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