Shares in French IT consulting agency Atos fell sharply after the corporate disclosed that auditors had discovered accounting errors at two of the agency’s U.S. items.
Atos shares had been down 18% in early buying and selling on the Paris bourse, then recovered some floor and had been buying and selling down 13.8 % at 0805 GMT. Citi downgraded its outlook on the inventory to impartial, citing the accounting points.
The entities affected had been Atos IT Options and Providers Inc., and Atos IT Outsourcing Providers LLC, which between them characterize about 11% of Atos’s consolidated turnover, Atos mentioned in a press release.
Atos mentioned that as a part of a daily audit of its accounts, its accountants had recognized issues with monetary reporting “resulting in a number of accounting errors”.
It mentioned it employed exterior companies to research whether or not these errors had let to a fabric misstatement of monetary efficiency, however mentioned there was not sufficient time to finish this work earlier than the common audit was printed.
“As of at this time, the Group has not recognized misstatements on the 2 U.S. entities which can be materials for the consolidated monetary statements,” the corporate assertion mentioned.
“Atos is dedicated to the best requirements and the Group is strongly enhancing its preventive controls and processes via a complete motion plan.”
The French agency mentioned in January it had made an strategy to purchase U.S. rival DXC Technology in what it known as a “pleasant transaction”. In February, they determined to finish the talks.
Atos shares have fallen for the reason that deal talks had been introduced, with buyers questioning the rationale for the acquisition, and have since languished close to the underside of France’s blue-chip CAC 40 share index.
JPMorgan analysts wrote in a analysis observe on Wednesday that Atos “dinged buyers’ view of its ambitions when it introduced that it was a pleasant takeover of DXC. Now accounting points might set the corporate again a bit additional.”
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