:Struggling French IT firm Atos reported a 4.4 per cent organic drop in third-quarter revenue on Thursday, owing to softer market conditions, but said it has seen an improved order entry for the quarter ahead.
Group revenue in the third quarter of the year fell to 2.30 billion euros ($2.48 billion) on a constant currency basis from 2.41 billion euros in the year-ago period.
“I expect stronger commercial activity in the coming months, with the anticipated return of multi-year strategic contracts with existing customers,” outgoing CEO Jean Pierre Mustier said in a statement.
Mustier will be replaced from February by Philippe Salle, Atos’ sixth CEO in less than two years, who has pledged to invest 9 million euros in the company’s ongoing restructuring.
The company’s order entry as of Sept. 30 was at 1.5 billion euros.
Book-to-bill ratio, which represents the numbers of orders received to those fulfilled, stood at 60 per cent for the Tech Foundations business.
The company expects the unit’s book-to-bill to be close to historical average for the fourth-quarter on the back of multi-year contracts returning.
Atos, regarded as one of Europe’s most strategic firms in the software and technology sector, secures communications for the French military as it owns the supercomputers that simulate nuclear bomb tests in France.
It also provides critical IT services to the National Health Service in Britain.
However, a string of debt-financed acquisitions and profit warnings resulting in many major management changes have impaired its solvency in the past few years.
Its share price has lost around 90 per cent of value since January.
Now, Atos’ financial recovery hinges on the implementation of an accelerated safeguard plan announced in July. The Nanterre Commercial Court is expected to render its decision on the matter later on Thursday.
