This article is more than 1 year old

Lara Croft creator gets £4 million bonus

While Eidos bleeds...

The man who spawned Lara Croft has netted a £4 million bonus, despite his company issuing two profit warnings and recording operating losses of £27 million.

In total, Eidos chiefs collected bonuses worth £5.6 million in the last financial year, with Jeremy Heath-Smith bagging the biggest share, £4 million. The 39-year-old runs Core Design, Eidos' subsidiary responsible for the Tomb Raider family of computer games.

French games group Infogrames is believed to be keen to buy Eidos, though the company yesterday tried to talk down the probability of a deal.



Egg saw more cracks appear in its share price yesterday. The online bank's shares slid another seven pence to 143 pence - well below its offer price of 160 pence. "The honeymoon period has ended and the stock is a clear sell," analyst Stephen Kirk told

The Telegraph.


Ebookers, the online travel agent, is said to be planning another round of fundraising. As yet there has been no announcement from the company about a sum to be raised or who will be approached, but the venture capitalists have been mentioned as likely targets. Chairman Dinesh Dhamija said that he expects the company to move into profit in the next 12 months by drastically reducing the advertising budget.




Fashionmall, the company that bought the boo.com brand, is at the centre of a privacy row following allegations that it used Boo's customer database.



Somewhat obliquely, the New York accountants and liquidators of Boo, KPMG, commented: "Some Boo customers may have been directly contacted by Fashionmall. We have instructed solicitors to contact their solicitors and ascertain what the circumstances are."

However, Fashionmall says that the use of some parts of the database was specifically covered by the contract when it bought Boo.



News and info supplier for mobiles iTouch has said it's worth between £280 million and £370 million. The company is preparing to float by the end of the month or just beyond.



Many are looking to the float as a subjective valuation of how much the whole mobile information market is worth. No one seems to know - the Independent says the valuation is at the "upper end of market expectations"; the Times says it is "near the bottom end of expectations". We think it's just right.



Video technology company Geo Interactive lost 11 per cent on its share price yesterday after directors said they might sell six per cent of the company. Several companies are thought to be interested in buying into Geo because it is working on getting video on mobile phones.




The BBC has set up a new trading company for the hi-tech side of Auntie's business. That means the Internet and New Media stuff. Called BBC Technology, it will be entirely owned by the Beeb but have a good degree of autonomy. There will be 1300 staff - but don't think that means new jobs. The arm is being formed out of BBC Resources, and so taking into account this "efficient" new setup there will be job losses. How many we don't know. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like