Atos Origin back in business

Considering the activist shareholder fighting at Atos Origin earlier this year, the management could be excused if the results were dire. Afterall peace broke out only in May 08. But Atos Origin’s H1 results are really quite good. Atos described them as ‘solid’ – the same word used by EDS to describe their results yesterday. Atos Origin recorded an organic growth of 6.3% to Euro2.745b with profits doubled to Euro125m.

The UK, under CEO Keith Wilman, did even better with a 12% revenue increase to £376 for the first 6 months of 2008. The outlook looks pretty encouraging too with the sales pipeline up 50%. The recipe for the turnaround (as always) was simple. Focus. Central Government (eg Ministry of Justice, Police), Transport (Alstom, National Express), Healthcare (NHS Scotland, DWP, MoD) as well as private sector work in Enterprise (Britvic, Theshers, Warburtons) and Financial Services (Capita, Liverpool & Victoria).

Very good review by my (ex) colleague Phil Codling at Ovum Atos Origin fires on more cylinders.