Siemens to sell IT service unit to Atos Origin
15 Dec 2010
Engineering and technology major Siemens is selling its IT unit Solutions and Services (SIS) to France's Atos Origin for €850 million, the German conglomerate said yesterday.
"We are creating a European Champion," Siemens CEO Peter Loescher said.
In a statement, Siemens said the deal would have a "considerable negative earnings impact" in Siemens' fiscal 2011.
It added that the deal was structured to be short-term accretive on the earnings per share for Atos Origin.
According to analysts, the deal caps the largest European engineering company's efforts to spin off its money-losing IT unit and clears the way for Atos Origin to scale up to global size.
With the deal, Atos Origin would step into the major league as a cloud computing player, which, according to Siemens, would be a major driver of growth in the future.