Infogrames Entertainment Group, the acquisitive French computer and video games publisher, is buying UK games company Gremlin Group Plc for $40m. Gremlin announced in January that it was in takeover talks with interested parties (CI No 3583) after the company’s share price fell sharply following a profit warning in December 1998 (CI No 3,564). Infogrames and Gremlin are already close, with distribution agreements for each others’ products.
A series of ambitious acquisitions, including that of Philips Media’s software publishing and distribution arm, has propelled Infogrames into the top ten of world interactive games publishers. Revenues in its last financial year were the equivalent of $244.6m and in the first six months of this year sales rose 36% to the equivalent of $184.7m
