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Gold/Mining/Energy : Schlumberger - The biggest/baddest oil service company

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To: Bald Eagle who wrote (176)	9/21/2003 11:40:42 PM
From: elmatador	of 216

Atos to buy Schlumberger units By Alain Ruello, Astrid Wendlandt and Isabelle Chaperon Published: September 21 2003 21:22 \| Last Updated: September 21 2003 21:22 Atos Origin, the Franco-Dutch provider of information technology services, is expected to announce on Monday the acquisition of several IT businesses from Schlumberger, the Franco-US oil services group, for about €1.3bn ($1.5bn). If approved by shareholders and competition authorities, the deal will partially unravel Schlumberger's acquisition of Sema, the IT consultancy business it bought in 2001 for $5.2bn and enable the group to focus on its core energy operations. Analysts have long questioned Schlumberger's acquisition of Sema and raised doubts over the price for venturing into IT. Schlumberger took a $2.9bn charge on the Sema acquisition last year. Atos and SchlumbergerSema are competing for a number of high-profile IT procurement contracts for the National Health Service in the UK. About two-thirds of Atos's acquisition of Sema is expected to be paid in newly issued shares with the balance settled in cash, people close to both companies said. The transaction is said to be backed by Philips, the Dutch electronics group and Atos's largest shareholder with a 44.7 per cent stake. The deal would see Atos take on most of Sema's operations in the UK and Europe. However, it would exclude Sema's IT activities in the oil and gas sector and several side businesses such as its telecom software division. Under the terms of the agreement, Atos is said to have signed a long-term IT services contract with Schlumberger. If the transaction is completed, Atos will become a sizeable IT services provider of IT services and consulting in Europe. Atos moved into consulting in June 2002 with the acquisition of two KPMG consulting divisions in the UK and the Netherlands for €657m. Schlumberger held informal talks earlier this year to sell some of its IT operations to Computer Sciences Corporation of the US. The talks ended in the summer without agreement. CSC was said to be principally interested in Sema's UK business while Schlumberger was keen to sell to SCS many of its other European businesses as well. *Schlumberger will also announce on Monday the rebranding of its smartcards division as Axalto in a further sign it is preparing the business for an initial public offering, Martin Arnold reports in Paris. The Paris-based business is valued by analysts at €800m. It has become the world's leading producer of microprocessor smartcards after overtaking France's Gemplus in terms of market share in the second half of last year.

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