Eidos board quits

Eidos's new owner, SCi, has put three of its senior executives on the British games publisher's board after all the previous incumbents quit this week.

Out went Eidos chairman John van Kuffeler, CEO Mike McGarvey, CFO Stuart Cruickshank, European MD Jonathan Kemp and Creative Director Ian Livingstone.

In come SCi CEO Jana Kavanagh, Commercial Director Bill Ennis and Finance Director Rob Murphy, who now constitute Eidos' board.

SCi's offer for Eidos became unconditional earlier this week, following a vote by SCi shareholders to allow SCI's chiefs to make good their offer to swap SCi shares for Eidos stock, and the agreement of a suitable majority of Eidos shareholders to accept the offer. In SCI's case that means raising a £60m through a new share issue in order to pay for the acquisition.

SCi denied claims that it plans to rid itself of senior Eidos staffers, though inevitably some people will have to go as the combined operation removes duplicated roles in order to cut costs.

Eidos put itself up for sale in August 2004, but a clear potential purchaser only emerged this past March when US-based investment house Elevation Partners made a cash offer for the company. SCi responded immediately with an alternative stock-swap deal. Eidos's board first gave Elevation the thumbs-up, but as the value of the SCi offer increased on rising share prices, it was forced to recommend the offer. On 25 April, Elevation pulled out. ®

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