Global IT consulting company Atos has acquired three technology businesses in growth markets. Next up, Atos may be looking to sell off legacy technology business units and some IT outsourcing operations focused on data center hosting and call centers, a report says.
The three Atos acquisitions confirmed July 27, 2021 involve:
1. Visual BI, a cloud data analytics and business intelligence company that partners with Snowflake, Microsoft and SAP. Visual BI also supports platforms such as Fishtown Analytics, Fivetran, Tableau, HVR Software, Qlik, Theobald Software and Alteryx. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Plano, Texas , Visual BI offering consulting services, analytics solutions and end-user training.
2. Nimbix, a high-performance computing (HPC) cloud platform provider that allows engineers and scientists to build, compute, analyze, scale, and deploy simulations, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning applications. Founded in 2010, Nimbix is headquartered near Dallas, Texas.
3. IDEAL GRP, a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system integrator and platinum-level solution partner of Siemens Digital Industries Software, headquartered in Finland. IDEAL GRP's 100 employees offer consulting, integration, software and maintenance services for businesses in the manufacturing sector.
Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. These are technology M&A deal numbers 465, 466 and 467 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2021.
Atos Revenue Challenges: Selling Some Business Units?
Many Atos rivals in 2021 have seen their IT consulting businesses re-accelerate after major covid-related economic lockdowns in 2020. But Atos continues to struggle on the growth front. Indeed, Atos revenue in the first half of 2021 was 5.4 billion euros (roughly $6.4 billion U.S. dollars), down one percent compared to the first half of 2020, the company disclosed July 27, 2021.
Amid those growth challenges, Atos is exploring the potential sale of legacy IT businesses -- including some outsourcing operations, Bloomberg reported. Indeed, Atos is looking for partners for operations comprising about 20 percent of group revenue, including its data-center hosting and call center units, Bloomberg added.
The Atos strategy sounds somewhat similar to IBM, which plans to spin off a managed infrastructure services business called Kyndryl before the end of 2021. IBM, similar to Atos, has also been acquiring faster-growth consulting businesses focused on cloud and business automation software.
Elsewhere, Atos gained some reassuring business clarity in North America -- where a full accounting review did not reveal any material misstatements. The company performed the review after expressing potential accounting concerns in the first half of 2021.
