The consensus was that whoever was wooing Birmingham UK-based video games publisher CentreGold Plc, it was going to be one of the foreign majors such as Sony Corp or Broderbund Software Inc, but it turns out that Eidos Plc’s ambitions are even bigger. The little video compression technology pioneer that with three acquisitions transformed itself into a much bigger games writer, now wants to integrate by going into distribution with the acquisition of CentreGold. A year or so after it floated, CentreGold stumbled badly as buyers held off from mature 8-bit and 16-bit games on the promise of snazzier 32-bit ones. Eidos is at an advanced stage of due diligence and CentreGold chief executive Geoffrey Brown has given Eidos an irrevocable undertaking in respect of his 29.1% of the shares provided any Eidos offer is worth at least 40 pence per share. As neither company has reported for many months, Eidos not since it was transformed, it is not clear what the size of the combination would be, but it looks as if annual sales are likely to be in the #80m range.
