Atos SE said that it is seeking more cash to finance its business and might need to further reduce its debt, as the embattled French IT company delayed a deadline it set for proposals from its creditors and banks to finance a rescue plan, Bloomberg News reported. The deadline, originally on Friday, will be moved back to May 3 after first quarter performance was hurt by customers postponing signing contracts, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Atos plans to submit its new needs “in the coming days,” according to the statement.
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The euro zone’s second and third-biggest economies are about to pile on debt again after three years of fixing their pandemic-bloated public finances, the International Monetary Fund said, Bloomberg News reported. Both France and Italy will see borrowings as a percentage of gross domestic product rise in 2024 and then keep creeping up over the coming half decade, the fund said in its World Economic Outlook released in Washington on Tuesday.
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Atos said that it reached an agreement in principle with a group of banks, bondholders and the French State for much-needed liquidity until the troubled French IT company strikes a definitive agreement with creditors to trim its debt pile and restore profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported. The group said yesterday that it would receive 450 million euros ($488.8 million) in financing to keep operations going while it aims to strike a deal with creditors on a new capital structure by July.
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French inflation eased below 3% for the first time in 2 1/2 years and Italy reported a lower-than-expected reading, confirming a trend that has tipped the European Central Bank toward cutting interest rates, Bloomberg News reported. Consumer prices in France, the euro area’s second-largest economy, rose 2.4% from a year earlier in March after a 3.2% gain the previous month, statistics agency Insee said. The slowdown was sharper than the 2.8% forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In Italy, the bloc’s third-largest economy, inflation had already fallen below 2% in October.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal pledged more cuts to unemployment welfare, risking a backlash ahead of European elections as he seeks to tame a runaway budget deficit and press on with President Emmanuel Macron’s economic-reform agenda, Bloomberg reported. The government will instruct businesses and labor unions that manage France’s unemployment insurance to negotiate the details of changes to be implemented in the fall, Attal said in an interview on TF1 television.
Both Altice France and a group of its creditors have started working with financial and legal advisers, amid a deepening stand-off between the telecoms firm and its lenders over the fate of the company’s debt load, Bloomberg News reported. On the company side, Altice is talking to Lazard Inc., while some bondholders — including Attestor Capital and Arini — are in discussions with advisers Houlihan Lokey Inc. and law firm Milbank LLP ahead of debt talks with the company, according to people familiar with the matter.
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France wants to make it easier for private equity funds to invest in listed companies and less costly for finance firms to let go of traders, part of a new push to make Paris more appealing for financial services, a lawmaker said on Monday, Reuters reported. France has been trying to lure high-paying finance jobs to the French capital since Britain's 2016 vote to leave the European Union, and it has had some success. Between 2017 and 2022, more than 7,000 jobs were created in the sector, according to a draft of a new bill, which was released on Monday and will go to parliament next month.
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France is entering an era of belt-tightening, as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, economic slowdowns in Germany and China and record-high interest rates take a bigger-than-expected toll on growth, the New York Times reported. The French will find themselves faced with cuts of 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in government spending, on items including environmental subsidies and education, the government announced Thursday, on top of €16 billion in cuts announced a few months ago.
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The French economy is set to end a six-month phase of stagnation and expand by 0.1% to 0.2% in the first quarter, the country's central bank said on Thursday as it released its monthly business survey, Reuters reported. "Declines in the construction and energy sectors were offset by a rise in value added in industry, while services remained stable", the Bank of France said. It also updated the growth rate measured during the fourth quarter of 2023, saying the economy had flatlined. It had previously given a 0.2% growth estimate.
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French farmers said that they will continue protests over falling incomes, higher costs and stringent European regulations after measures unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal failed to calm their anger, Bloomberg News reported. Attal pledged a reversal of a plan to raise taxes on farming fuel, faster disbursement of emergency funds, and big fines for companies not respecting rules on price negotiations.
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