Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Atos conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Saleh, Atos CFO. Please go ahead.
Yes, and, thank you, and greetings, everyone. Thank you for joining us, this morning to discuss, our press release. In it, we've provided, a market update on a number of recent development and the progress that we're making on ongoing, business transformation and the corresponding work streams that, go with it. You will see on slide 2 our, disclaimers, and, I can go now to the key messages that you will find in this update. The first one is, I wanna just really reiterate that this management team and the board of directors are fully committed to pursuing Atos, corporate interest and preserving the interests of all of its, stakeholders.
To that end, the group strategy has been adjusted right now to address, in particular, the repayment and the refinancing of upcoming maturities while maintaining the appropriate business mix for our employees and clients that we serve, as well as for our investors. The third point and message is that our ongoing exclusive negotiation with EPEI are continuing to progress. This is for the sale of the Tech Foundations. There are a number of topics that we are in discussions with them on, and it's taking longer than we had originally anticipated, and we wanted just to really continue to stress that there's no certainty that an agreement can be reached, but we're continuing to progress in those discussions.
The fourth message is, as we look at changing market conditions and, reactions in the market, we believe that a reduction in the planned size of, Eviden capital increase, is warranted, and then we will be working on that. In addition, message number five is that, we've made a decision to implement an additional asset disposal program, of which the sale of BDS is a key elements of that. We have received indicative offer for this, business, particularly from Airbus, for EUR 1.5 billion-EUR 1.8 billion, and, we are gonna be initiating a due diligence process, and that process will begin, promptly. In addition to that, our message, number, six, is that the initiation.
We're gonna be initiating discussions with our banks to maintain financing and to provide refinancing opportunities for us, and I'll cover that just in a moment. Finally, in the update, you will see that there have been some changes to the group's board of directors with the appointments of two board members, Françoise Mercadal-Delasalles and Jean-Jacques Morin. Both new board members will be strengthening the areas of the companies, particularly in the strategic area of finance and major transformation projects.
Let me move on now to the next slide and talk about the how the group has adjusted, as I mentioned, its strategy in order to maintain an attractive business mix for employees, customers, creditors, and shareholders, obviously, and with a particular focus to address the repayment and refinancing of the debt obligations that are coming due, particularly over the next 12-24 months. To do that, the company will need to take the following actions, either individually or in combination. We have mentioned some of these things in our prior communication back in November.
Obtain new bank financing would be one of those steps, looking at accessing the capital market, whether it's debt or equity, implementing a major asset disposal program, which we have just already highlighted, and continue specific actions to optimize our working capital management. If I go to the next slide and give you a little bit more insight into where things stand with the Tech Foundations, and particularly our discussions with EPEI. As I mentioned, there are active discussions on many parameters of the transaction.
Those include price to be paid, the structure of the transaction, and the transfer of a large portion of liabilities to the buyer. As with any negotiation I mentioned, there are some, you know, uncertainty related to reaching an agreement.
But you will see also in the update that we're mentioning, that we're also examining with the potential buyer the potential for, well, for releasing the whole or in part the commitment to participate in the capital increase, but that would be... There would be a corresponding, you know, financial conditions for us, so that it would be neutral from a capital raise perspective. As I mentioned also earlier, we believe that a reduction in the initially planned capital increase due to changing market conditions and reactions may be warranted for the capital raise for Eviden.
That point that I mentioned just would be a factor in that reduction in the capital increase by looking at not only better terms out of the negotiation with the potential buyer, but also, as I mentioned, to look at legal and financial conditions that will maybe allow us to release in whole and in part their commitment to participate in the capital increase. If I move on to the topic of asset disposal program, as I mentioned, that we had originally indicated that we would have a EUR 400 million asset sales program. That was really part of the press release that was issued on July twenty-eighth of last year.
In addition to that, now we are considering other asset sales, and the sale of BDS is part of that and a key component of that program. We received two non-binding indication of interest for that business, one of which relate only to parts of the BDS business, and the other one is for the full perimeter of the BDS business. We have made a decision to pursue discussions with Airbus. They've given us an indicative offer of EUR 1.5 billion-EUR 1.8 billion for that business. As I indicated as well, that we're initiating due diligence phase with them very, very promptly.
And then, in light of those discussions, we have not yet ruled out the sale of additional assets than BDS if needed. Moving on to the topic of bank refinancing. You should know that we have exercised the first 6-month extension of the current Term Loan A, that will take us to July 2024. We're initiating now new discussions with our banks in light of the market developments, but particularly also with the contemplated sale of the BDS business. We need just to reengage with our banks and initiate discussions.
The objective of those discussions will be to maintain the level of financing commitment that we have had with them, provide some refinancing of over time, and also help us to address our long-term financing needs of the business, and particularly also allowing us the financial flexibility to execute on these asset sales. And then, as with any discussions of this nature, the company has the ability to avail itself of various legal mechanism to frame, but particularly to facilitate any discussions with banks or other creditors or debt holders. So in summary, this update has the purpose of, again, reconfirming our commitment to pursue actions that are always in the interest of to preserve the interest of all of our stakeholders.
I mentioned that our strategy has been adjusted in light of having to address our maturities that are coming due over the next 12-24 months. Our ongoing negotiation with the EPEI on the sale of Tech Foundations, and this is really kind of continuing to progress. Again, uncertain about the outcome at this particular moment. Implementation of the additional asset sales, with the contemplated sale of BDS, which is really a critical element of that added disposal program. And then, as I mentioned just a moment ago, the initiation of discussions with our bank that will allow us to maintain the level of financing that we have with them and provide refinancing flexibility for us.
Finally, we're reiterating our commitment to continuing to have that open dialogue with all of our investors and giving you a regular update on any market development. So with that, I will just now turn the session to your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. That's star one and one if you wish to ask a question. There are no questions at this time. As a reminder, it's star one and one if you wish to ask a question.
All right, operator, since we do not have any questions, I'll invite you if someone wants to follow up with questions later on, you can reach to our investor relations team, and we will just really schedule a call to answer any questions you may have. Again, thank you for-
Sorry, Paul.
Yes.
Is that, is that okay? There is one question now.
Absolutely.
Okay.
But that prior comment is still valid. You can-
I'm so sorry about that.
... No, you can still reach us directly, but go ahead. Question?
Okay, I will take the question. One moment, please. It's from the line of Ankit Gupta from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, hey, thanks for taking my question. Just one question to start with is what does the—like it implies in one of your statement, you have mentioned about using a legal mechanism to frame and facilitate discussion. Like, will it be possible to further clarify what you mean here?
Well, I think, thank you, first of all, for your question, but this is just basically to reiterate, and when you're just really trying to extend maturities and you will need, at times to avail yourself of other opportunities in a sense, or other mechanism that can facilitate discussions if those discussions were to stall. That is not to say that any discussions are stalling since they haven't been initiated anyway, right? But just a reminder that the company has access to other mechanism to facilitate and accelerate discussions on topic of refinancing.
Got it. Got it. Any discussion with Onepoint with regards to this transaction? Are they on the board with the particular selling of your BDS business?
Who's... Again, can you rephrase that? When you say they, who is they?
Onepoint, like
Oh.
Recently, like they have... Yeah. So any discussion with them, whether they are on board with this particular transaction you're trying to do right now?
Yeah. At this point, this is a decision that the board has made to pursue this opportunity, and we do not have more to say about it.
Got it. Fair enough. That is for my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no more questions at this time.
All right. Again, thank you all, and then reach out to our investor relation team for any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you for joining us.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.