6 replies to this topic

[Gregory DG]

Saw this story.

The part which is interesting to me is this line: "The deal will cut the French company's stake in Atari to about 66 percent from 88 percent."

I thought Infogrames had changed their name to Atari? This makes it seem as if Atari is just another company owned partially by Infogrames.

What's going on here?

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

It sounds like the difference between Infogrames' US subsidiary (which is the entity we now call Atari) and the French parent company.

[JagMX]

Atari - American
Infogrames - French

not good bedfellows

[Rhindle The Red]

My understanding is that the French Infogrames will eventually change its name to Atari as well. It just takes longer in France.

This stuff is just typical behavior when it comes to multinational companies an their subsidiaries. It's mostly just shuffling money around from one branch to another. Since Infogrames still holds 66 percent, they still control Atari, Inc. completely.

Could that change? Certainly. A subsidiary can be spun off (as Pepsi did with their restaurants) or sold (as Warner did with Atari). The same could happen here, but there's no reason to think it would. It would benefit neither. Atari would lose the licenses that Infogrames holds and Infogrames would lose their most profitable division.

This was simply a financial move designed to ease certain financial pressures Infogrames was subject to. No big deal.

[JB]

Rhindle The Red said:

My understanding is that the French Infogrames will eventually change its name to Atari as well.  It just takes longer in France.

I was under the impression that french companies had to have french names.

As Atari is japanese, for Infogrames to change their name to Atari would be illegal.


I'd love to be mistaken here.
...
Almost as much as I'd love to not see DragonBall Z games with the Atari logo on them.

[Pocket]

No no, it's not the case

[AtariDude]

I am currently taking a course in corporate finance and a company reducing its debt to equity ratio is always a good thing. It shows that financially the company is gaining strength financially.