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Dear Shareholders,
During 2011, Atos Origin became Atos, a worldwide leading information technology group, and in Europe, after the successful integration of Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS) that you massively approved at the extraordinary general assembly meeting on July 1st, 2011. The new Atos generated EUR 8.5 billion revenue (pro forma 2011) with 74,000 employees, most of them engineers, in nearly 50 countries worldwide. It is ideally positioned to become a leader both in fundamental IT, through its unique managed services platform, and in critical IT, its high tech transactional services and specialized businesses representing already 20% of its turnover. In addition, Atos and Siemens have established a global industrial partnership.
While realizing SIS integration, your company achieved for the third year running, its objectives in terms of profitability, revenue and cash, despite the continuing difficult economic environment.
Group profitability is 6.2%, thanks to the swift deployment of the Total Operating Performance (TOP2) program, pursued in order to capture the synergies from the SIS integration. In addition, Atos returned to organic growth in 2011, demonstrating the positive impact of SIS acquisition. Finally, the Group debt was limited to EUR 142 million at the end of 2011, thanks to an increased free cash flow.
Overall, Atos has fully accomplished its three year recovery plan (2009 – 2011). Since 2008, Atos has increased by 45% its number of engineers, 55% its revenues and 140 basis points its profitability (statutory) and above 250 basis point for Atos Origin standalone; it has also divided by 2 its net debt. This is reflected into Atos share price which has increased by nearly 200% over this period.
In 2012, your company will put emphasis on innovation, while continuing its strategy of growth and performance. Our goal is to help and support our customers to reinvent their models of future growth at a time of massive change that can affect them financially, economically, technologically and socially.
Early this year, we have announced a strategic alliance with global cloud technology leaders EMC2 and VMWare to address the growing Cloud market. By creating a new company, Canopy, we will provide a market-leading one-stop shop for Cloud services, enabling our customers to easily, securely and cost effectively accelerate their move to the Cloud. In parallel, we will continue to develop our activities high-tech transactional services, including technology advanced offerings for smart energy, smart mobility, security or content management. We will also deploy new technologies to support our Zero email™ initiative, improving collaboration and driving our ambition in enterprise social network.
Creating one of the most innovative and socially responsible companies to work for is indeed at the heart of our strategy, as I want to ensure that our people are at the heart of the reinvention of your company. Regarding our worldwide Wellbeing@work ambition, Atos Corporate and Social Responsibility report was awarded A+ by the Global Reporting Initiative, recognizing Atos’ leading position in the field of sustainability. In addition, as part of its objective to be recognized as one of the best companies in terms of work environment, Atos has been awarded as “Best Workplace” in Poland and will participate to the Great Place to Work challenge in all its major geographies in 2012.
In summary, I remain convinced that while respecting our commitments semester after semester, demonstrating our ability to execute our transformation plans perfectly and anticipating the new technology trends post-crisis, at Atos we have all the ingredients for becoming one of the world leaders in information technology. In summer this year, the Olympic Games, for which we are the IT partner, will give a fantastic opportunity to show to our customers, partners and stakeholders what “powering progress” – our new brand signature – is all about.
This will be for you, dear shareholders, the Board of Directors and myself the best way to thank all those who contribute to our development and the realization of our objectives by participating in a lasting way to create shared value, and especially each of our 74,000 employees and engineers.
Thierry BRETON,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
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