Airbus shareholder TCI, a hedge fund, has demanded the French aerospace company drop plans to buy a near-30% stake in Evidian, a division of French consulting firm Atos.
In a public letter by TCI chief, the British billionaire Christopher Hohn, Airbus' chief executive Guillaume Faury was told the proposed stake would be "value destructive" as Evidian is a "low-quality, high-levered" business.
TCI, which owns around 3% of Airbus' shares valued at over €4bn, labelled the proposed investment as a seeming "bail out" of Atos and demanded Airbus say if any of it would be used to pay down Atos' debt.
"Investing in Evidian would also significantly dilute the quality of Airbus’ business," Hohn said, warning Airbus would be taking on Evidian's operating losses with the deal.
Atos announced on February 16 that it had "received an indicative offer from Airbus to enter into a long-term strategic and technological agreement and to acquire a minority stake of 29.9% in Evidian".
Hohn demanded Airbus disclose what involvement the French government, an Atos client, has had in the proposed deal, which Atos said related to "sovereignty in France".
"Through this proposed large-scale partnership, we would accelerate Evidian’s industrial project and future growth while ensuring technological sovereignty in France and in Europe in the critical fields of cloud, advanced computing, cyber-security and digitalisation," said Bertrand Meunier, chairman of the Atos board of directors.