GAME Pulls Itself from Stock Exchange

[Shawn Zipay]

More troubles for The Game Group today as the company voluntarily pulls itself off of the stock exchange. The company has issued a statement on the matter.

"Further to the announcements of 12 March 2012 and 14 March 2012, the board of GAME has assessed the status of the ongoing and regular discussions between GAME and its lending banks and between its lending banks and a potential third party provider of finance to the business.

"The Board now considers itself to be unable to assess the business's financial position, and is of the opinion that there is no equity value left in the Group. Therefore the Company has requested that the listing of its securities on the Main Market of London Stock Exchange plc be suspended from trading with effect from 7:30am today.

"The Company will provide a further update in due course."

(TGN note: They later updated with the following) "Board unable to assess the business's financial position, and is of the opinion that there is no equity value left in the Group"

FT reports that nearly half of all GAME stores are in danger of being shut down. At present, GAME has 600 stores open and is sitting on roughly £180 million of debt. The US rival to GAME, GameStop, has shown no interest in acquiring the sinking UK retailer.

Publishers, including EA as we last noted, have been unwilling to send shipments to the stores. GAME is expected to go into administration shortly.

[Eagle101]

well this sucks balls, i have no intention of buying my games through digital distribuiton, thank God this is my final year in the UK because we dont have these problems back home and games are much cheaper.

[Scinto]

Farewell GAME.

I have been a loyal customer to the Game Group since 1995. Although over the years the Stores have been slowly reducing the size of the PC Games shelves. You were still the store I would go to for my Pre-orders, the free P&P was always nice and the odd time where games would be delivered before the actual release date was always a Bonus. I have no idea how much I have actually spent in your stores nor do I wish to its probably better for both of us.

Its a shame to see a great store disappear however it might now get rid of the daft 3 day wait for game releases between US & UK/EU. Sorry but it had to be said. I have draws under my bed filled with Boxed Games and no where to put them, perhaps I can find a nice bookshelf to put them on Display for nostalgia's sake. Majority of those I got from GAME.

But now its time to move on, and onto the future of Digital Downloads. I for one love this form of distribution as I don't have to relay on a disc to store the game, especially after years of use it would end up being scratched or worse. But now I can store them on a Drive or re-download them.

:icon_salute: GAME.