Report: JoWooD Entertainment Investment Negotiations Break Down

Negotiations with potential investors over Austrian publisher JoWooD Entertainment have broken down, according to media reports. The Spellforce European publisher applied for capital reorganization in the Vienna Commercial Court at the start of the year, as the company declared insolvency. JoWooD management still hoped to keep the company running, despite its financial situation. The board had said it "assumes that negotiations with creditors and possible investors can be positively conducted and finalized within 90 days and thus continuation of the company can be assured." German news site Boerse-Express is now reporting that the publisher has failed to find an investor, and that the restructuring process has failed. An accompanying report also notes that shares in the company have been suspended from trading, while JoWooD Distribution Services has also filed for bankruptcy. JoWooD Entertainment was founded in 1995, and is the publisher of titles such as the Painkiller, Spellforce and Gothic series. It acquired Canadian games publisher DreamCatcher in 2006, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of JoWooD and its base of operations in North America. It is yet to be confirmed how DreamCatcher will be affected by this breakdown.