By Matteo Rosemin

PARIS (Reuters) – Czech billionaire Daniel Krytinski is in unique talks to purchase loss-making legacy Atos operations in a 2 billion euro ($2.20 billion) deal that will considerably cut back the scope and liabilities of the troubled French IT consultancy.

The corporate mentioned the talks, which had been introduced with Kretinsky’s subsidiary EP Fairness Funding (EPEI), come on high of a €900m fairness sale plan, aimed toward additional propping up Atos’ steadiness sheet.

Atos mentioned the anticipated sale would usher in 100 million euros in money and cut back 1.9 billion euros in liabilities from the expertise firm’s steadiness sheet. The mission provides a worth of two billion euros to the bought division, referred to as Tech Foundations.

Tech Foundations, whose actions generated 4.5 billion euros in income final yr, offers infrastructure administration providers.

Atos shares had been up 6.8 % in early Paris buying and selling.

Atos deliberate to separate the corporate in two, whereas separating its most sought-after property, comparable to its BDS cybersecurity unit and supercomputers, thought of strategic by the French state, into a brand new unit referred to as Eviden.

The expensive cut up was an try to revive investor confidence after a number of extreme setbacks and administration instability.

After the sale of the technical unit, Atos will proceed to be renamed Eviden.

Deep internet price Kretinsky, who made his fortune within the power sector, is searching for a shopping for spree in France, having set his eyes on quite a lot of property, from French retailer On line casino to Vivendi’s Editis publishing group.

Atos additionally introduced the departure of Chief Monetary Officer Natalie Senicholt, who held the primary place for one yr. Incoming CFO Paul Saleh, after a number of days of labor, was in contact with analysts on Tuesday morning.

($1 = 0.9095 euros)

(Reporting by Matthew Rosemin and Sudeep Kar-Gupta; Enhancing by Edmund Kellman and Sharon Singleton)