Infogrames Reports Losses

Infogrames has announced significant losses for the quarter ending its fiscal year on March 31, 2000. While this year has generally been poor in terms of financial performance for game publishers, Infogrames' results seem to be tied to its move to consolidate its operations and focus on publishing rather than distributing games.

Earlier this year, Infogrames reorganized its operations and slimmed down to incorporate GT Interactive, which it acquired for US$135 million. The company wrote off $134 million in restructuring costs for the quarter, a move which is mainly attributed to the cost of excess inventory and personnel changes. Excluding these costs, Infogrames' net loss was a relatively slim $6.6 million.

Revenues for the fourth quarter decreased by one-third over the same period the previous year, from $93.5 million to $61.1 million. Much of this decline is due to a large decrease in distribution revenue and is partly counterbalanced by an upswing in Infogrames' publishing revenue.

Bruno Bonnell, chairman and CEO of Infogrames, stated, "Although we have seen a slowdown in top- and bottomline results, we believe that we are on the right track to improve the company's performance."