French IT giant Atos buys its way into becoming one of the biggest cloud services vendors in Europe as it swallows rival security, big data and enterprise cloud services provider Bull for €620 million.
"Bull’s highly recognised teams in advanced technologies such as high computing power, data analytics management and cybersecurity ideally complement Atos’ large scale operations,” Atos CEO Thierry Breton says.
The two companies stand at number 5 and 10 in the top 10 European cloud provider rankings. Atos adds the cloud services market will grow at a CAGR of 25-50% over the next 2 years, and the Bull buy is a “unique opportunity to… create the European global IT leader in cloud, big data and cybersecurity”.
According to Bloomberg the Atos-Bull deal comes just weeks after Atos made a similar bid for Groupe Steria SCA-- a deal Steria refused in favor of a rival offer from Sopra Group.
Steria described the Atos proposal as "unsolicited and designed “to disturb” its talks," Bloomberg reports. On the other hand Atos simply says that its offer still stands.
Go Atos Offers $844m to Buy Bull in Cybersecurity Push (Bloomberg)
