(Bloomberg) -- French cloud provider OVHcloud has announced a new chief executive officer and a €350 million ($378 million) share buyback as the company seeks to establish itself as a major European cloud provider.
Benjamin Revcolevschi, currently deputy CEO, is taking the reins from Michel Paulin, who has resigned, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Revcolevschi said OVH seeks to reach positive free cash flow in 2026, with 10% revenue growth next year.
The buyback offer stands at €9 per share, a 14.6% premium to its closing price on Wednesday, but significantly lower than the €20 on its first day of trading after an initial public offering in 2021.
OVHcloud is trying to compete in a cloud market dominated by US players like Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS, Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. But the Paris-headquartered company has struggled to make a dent in their market share.
The company was one of three European cloud providers to make antitrust complaints to the European Commission in 2021, arguing that Microsoft’s licensing practices were unfair. OVH has since settled with Microsoft after withdrawing the complaint, a spokesperson said Thursday.
OVH will “continue to fight” to get a fair playing field, Revcolevschi added.
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