Airbus in talks to buy Atos cyber unit for up to €1.8bn

French aerospace giant Airbus is in early discussions to purchase a big data and cyber business from Atos for up to €1.8bn, the IT group announced on Wednesday.

Airbus had previously attempted to buy a minority stake in the Atos division Eviden, which houses the BDS unit in question along with its cloud-computing activities, but the deal faced investor obstacles.

Atos has now confirmed that Airbus is entering due diligence over a potential sale of BDS that gives it an enterprise value of between €1.5bn to €1.8bn.

Airbus is wanting to beef up its defence and security operations, while Atos is looking for help to cut its debtload with €2.25bn maturing in 2025.

Separately, Atos said it is still in talks with EP Equity Investment to offload its Tech Foundations unit and hasn't ruled out any other additional disposals.