France's Atos confirmed on Thursday it has made a bid approach for US rival DXC Technology in what would be the deal-hungry IT consulting group's biggest ever acquisition.
DXC said in a statement it had received a takeover proposal on Wednesday night and had no prior knowledge of any interest from Atos. It called the offer"unsolicited, preliminary and non-binding", adding its board of directors would evaluate it. Atos said in its statement it would apply"financial discipline" in pursuing DXC, cautioning that there was no certainty that the approach would result in a deal.
It is now looking to take advantage of investor appetite for pandemic resilient assets in technology to clinch a deal that would be in the region of its own market value of €8.2 billion , the sources said. The Tysons, Virginia-based firm, which has a market value of US$6.7 billion, saw its revenues fall to US$19.6 billion in 2020 from US$20.75 billion in 2019 while its total debt rose to US$9.9 billion in 2020 from US$7.4 billion in 2019.