Just 6 months after taking over at French troubled game producer Infogrames, new CEO Patrick Leleu has eliminated most of the board at its majority owned US Atari subsidiary and dragged in new high powered replacements. The aim appears to be to restore the US business which collapsed from $343 million to years ago to $206 million down to $122 million in its latest annual figures. Many people think that this is a tidying up operation prior to the sale of the rump of the business. Most of Infogrames losses are down to the US Atari connection.
On the back of a second year of losses over $60 million, much of it in the way of a $54 million impairment, Atari never looked like turning around on its own under current management and the bulk of the non-Infogrames Board members reached deals to depart from the company earlier in October and replacements were named this week.
Atari added a chief restructuring officer in the form of Curtis Solsvig III who works at AlixPartners, which has been retained to assist Atari in evaluating strategic alternatives ‘ usually slang for a trade sale or asset sales.
Other appointments are top US lawyers, restructuring and strategy specialists and investment advisors, more in keeping with a group planning a series of strategic asset sales than continued running of operations long term. Atari still claims to be the third largest independent games publisher in the US and owns over 1,000 console and PC titles.