France’s Atos raises concerns with watchdog over new shareholder

PARIS (Reuters) – IT consulting group Atos, which has been in the spotlight over accounting problems at two U.S. units, said on Tuesday it had contacted France’s financial markets watchdog after a new investor built a significant stake in the company.

The French IT group said it had concerns about the shareholder but declined to elaborate.

A regulatory filing from May 17 shows Finsur Corp, described as a U.S. firm owned by Dylan Dariah and registered in the State of Delaware, revealed a 5.08{14cc2b5881a050199a960a1a3483042b446231310e72f0dc471a7a1eddd6b0c3} stake in France’s Atos. According to the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF website, Finsur Corp’s stake has now dropped to 4.23{14cc2b5881a050199a960a1a3483042b446231310e72f0dc471a7a1eddd6b0c3}.

Corporate filings in France show that Finsur, which had been registered as a company in the country in 2019, was no longer active as such as of February 2020.

A spokeswoman for Atos, which develops solutions in areas such as cloud services and big data, confirmed that the company had contacted the AMF. BFM Business earlier reported the move.

“We had some doubts about this shareholder”, the spokeswoman said, without giving details.

The AMF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters was unable to independently contact Finsur and its representative in France. BFM Business said it had received no response.

Atos disclosed in April that auditors had found accounting errors at two U.S. units, sending its shares down at the time. They are down 26{14cc2b5881a050199a960a1a3483042b446231310e72f0dc471a7a1eddd6b0c3} so far this year.

The company has said it would conduct a full accounting review of the two U.S. units and would give a status update when it releases first-half results on July 28.

(Reporting by Matthieu Protard and Blandine Henault, Editing by Sarah White and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)