Midway Not Worth The Paper Its Stock Is Printed On

By Joe Haygood | December 1, 2008

As of late the storied company Midway, has had anything but fortune.  Looking at some of its recent releases, you can see nothing more than the average selling Stranglehold, to the dismal performers like Unreal Tournament 3 and Blacksite: Area 51, a game so bad, the developer disavowed any ownership over the game.

Now comes word that Midway has been sold for the sum of $100,000.  That’s right, Sumner Redstone, who owned a controlling stake of 87% in Midway, sold all of his shares in the company for $0.0012 a share.  Yep, that is correct, the company stock was worth less than one penny.  Mark Thomas is the lucky, or unlucky depending on how you look at it, owner of Midway.  With his $100,000 purchase, he also assumes the $70 million debt load that Midway owes its creditors.

So lets look at the box score on this deal.  Sumner Redstone sells his stock for $100,000 and gets to take a tax write off of $800 million due to the decline in the value of Midway stock.  Mark Thomas pays $100,000 to take on $70 million in debt in a company that seems to be banking everything on two titles, Mortal Kombat vs. DC and Wheelman.  Right now, I think the hi-five goes to Redstone.\

via Gamepolitics.com