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Media mogul Sumner Redstone has sold his 87 per cent controlling stake in Midway Games to a private investor for $100,000.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Redstone sold the stake to ‘ease his load’. His network of businesses had begun to cause him fiscal trouble – as reported on MCV.
Redstone’s National Amusements Inc. is expected to announce later today that it sold the 87 percent stake to investor Mark Thomas for $0.0012 a share. Thomas will also assume $70 million of senior secured and unsecured debt.
National Amusements Inc. also holds controlling voting stakes in CBS Corp and Viacom. It had already sold about $230 million in shares of both companies to help meet debt payments.
The sale amounts to a significant loss on Redstone’s investment but National Amusements is expected to realise a 2008 tax loss of more than $800 million from the sale, the paper said.
National Amusements has about $1.6 billion in debt outstanding. Half of that will need to be repaid by year-end.
Midway was threatened with being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange last week.
