You honestly have to wonder what Sumner Redstone, the chairman of both Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and CBS (NYSE: CBS), thinks about Midway Games (NYSE: MWY). The guy has a huge investment in the struggling software publisher. He owns something like 87% of the company's shares. He controls Midway. I mean, does he look at the performance of this business? Does it make him angry? Confused?
Anyway, Midway reported earnings for the second quarter earlier in the week, and as usual, they weren't the stuff of Wall Street dreams (see more earnings news), Revenues declined 26% to $23.4 million. The publisher lost $0.29 per diluted share on an adjusted basis. Last year at this time the loss was $0.12 per diluted share on an adjusted basis. That's horrible. For Q3, management expects an adjusted loss of $0.27 per diluted share. Midway is excited about its upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe title, to be released in time for the holidays. I'm not excited. Will the game be enough to propel the stock, which closed on Wednesday at a bargain price of $2.66, higher? I use the phrase "bargain price" sarcastically, of course.
I've often wondered about the Midway dilemma. What can this company possibly do to improve itself? Should Redstone order management to look for better synergies between it and the Viacom/CBS content library and/or platforms? Midway has worked with MTV before on promoting a few titles. It's too bad that Midway doesn't have access to some of the popular characters of the Nickelodeon channel. THQ (NASDAQ: THQI) currently has that license. I'd have to believe that good ole SpongeBob SquarePants would have helped things out.
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