From: | MC23 <mc23@**********.COM> |
---|---|
Subject: | [OT] Game news WEG update |
Date: | Wed, 8 Jul 1998 01:47:31 -0400 |
those who are interested.
West End Games owner Scott Palter confirmed plans to file this week
for a Chapter 11 reorganization of West End's finances, but he expressed
hope that with new financing and the cooperation of their major
licensors, the company may stay in business.
"We do plan to stay in business, at a smaller size," Palter said. Of
the bankruptcy filing, Palter said, "it's a (reorganization) and it's a
condition for getting new financing."
Palter said that 1998 sales were off 60% from the $2.1 million
grossed in 1997. "We hit a wall last December," he said. He also
clarified several points made in Pyramid's previous report on West End's
problems, specifically that game designer Tim O'Brien and several
administrators were not let go (though everybody else was), and that the
family shoe importing company never carried the Ferragamo line.
Palter said the future of the company depended on three key licenses
-- Star Wars, DC Comics and Hercules & Xena -- and that one of them
(which he declined to identify) had already agreed to stick with him for
now.
Other West End sources expressed doubts that the sought-after
refinancing would materialize. "He's been looking for new financing for
months," said a staffer who asked not to be identified.