14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that even if it was sold off by its previous owners, Midway is in no better shape when it comes to its finances. The new owner of the company, Acquisition Holdings Subsidiary, has filed some documents estimating that, if the current rate holds in the coming months, Midway could be out of money by July, meaning that it will have to request bankruptcy protection from the authorities.
The documents, which were initially discovered by GamePolitics, are showing that, in early February, Midway had 16.7 million dollars in reserves and that it will only have 4.3 million of those in early May.
In June, the company is set to lack the resources to make day to day payments. It also seems that debt is an old problem for the videogame publisher, which has had “continuous operating losses for nearly a decade,” relying on cheap credit to operate, according to the report.
Midway even sought to get another buyer, designating financial giant Citigroup to look for a potential buyer, but the deals fell through, apparently because of the bad shape of the publisher and because it overstated its market value.
At the moment, the owner of Midway is Mark Thomas, who has about 10 million dollars and lives in Massachusetts. He bought Midway for just 100,000 dollars, after having made an initial offer of 1 million. Apparently, the new owner does not have the money needed to re-structure the company so he must be looking for another buyer to flip the company.
Midway has been plagued by low quality titles in the last few years. The most recent Mortal Kombat game, which also featured the DC Universe lineup, was overshadowed by the release of Street Fighter IV, which sold very well and was a critical success. Its TNA lineup has also been less than successful in its latest iterations.