Atos Cybersecurity, MSSP Business Attracts More Takeover Interest: Report

European aerospace giant Airbus is interested in acquiring Atos -- mainly because of the Atos cybersecurity business known as BDS, according to a French television report picked up by Reuters.

It doesn't sound like a deal is pending, but this is at least the second time in recent months that the Atos cybersecurity business has attracted potential buyout interest. The other example involved Thales contemplating a bid for the Atos cybersecurity unit in February 2022. Also, multiple private equity firms apparently explored a potential Atos acquisition in 2021.

Atos in February 2022 said the cybersecurity business unit was not for sale.

Atos Business Evolution

Atos is a global IT consulting firm with a Top 250 MSSP business unit. The overall company has 107,000 employees and worldwide scale. But revenue growth has been inconsistent — especially compared to cloud-centric MSPs and MSSPs that are riding the managed services and cybersecurity market waves.

The overall Atos business is in transition amid stiff competition from Accenture, Deloitte and other big IT consulting firms that have increasingly transitioned to managed cloud services.

Atos took $2.7 billion in write-downs in the second half of 2021. Rodolphe Belmer, who became CEO in January 2022,  said the write-down will give the global IT consulting firm a fresh start. The write-downs involved goodwill for an infrastructure acquisition and various data center assets.

Atos Acquisitions: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Salesforce Expertise