French company Atos takes on two directors representing shareholder Onepoint
PARIS (Reuters) - Atos appointed three new directors to its board, two of whom will represent its "anchor" shareholder Onepoint, which holds 11.4% of the group, the embattled French IT company said on Thursday.

The directors appointed are David Layani, founder and chief executive of Onepoint, which provides consultancy and technological implementation services, as well as Helen Lee Bouygues, who is president of consulting firm LB Associes and has worked for McKinsey, in recovery and transformation services, and JPMorgan in mergers and acquisitions.

The third appointed director is Atos' own Mandy Metten, who currently serves as head of group executives and strategic functions, and joins the board as employee director.

The appointments come at a time when the company is struggling to turn around its loss-making businesses, having churned through four chief executives in less than two years following a string of profit warnings. Its latest boss, Paul Saleh, was promoted from finance chief only last month.

On Wednesday, talks over the sale of its legacy Tech Foundations arm with Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky collapsed. The sale would have offloaded a string of loss-making operations and helped the company to refinance 4.7 billion-euros ($5.1 billion) in debt.

($1 = 0.9231 euros)

(Reporting by Piotr Lipinski; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Sonali Paul)
Technology
PARIS (Reuters) -     Atos appointed three new directors to its board, two of whom will represent its "anchor" shareholder Onepoint, which holds 11.4% of the group, the embattled French IT company said on Thursday.