Take-Two Firms Up Results, Switches Directors, Confirms Fire

Rockstar and 2K Games parent Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. has announced its official final results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended October 31, 2005, following a recent postponement of its results filing, due to an inventory management system change, and disclosures that the company did not maintain timely controls over the accuracy of some of its accounts. The unchanged and expected results in the fourth quarter ended October 31, 2005 showed revenue of $308.2 million, compared to $438.0 million for the same period in 2004 when Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas launched, and the company saw a $19.2 million profit, identical to that predicted in its preliminary results early in January. Though profitable, the results compared poorly to 2004's $62.6 million fourth quarter profit. Overall, revenues for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2005 increased 6% to $1.20 billion from $1.13 billion for the prior year, and overall profit of $37.5 million compared to a $65.4 million in the previous fiscal year. However, a simultaneously announced Board Of Directors reshuffle saw Barbara A. Kaczynski, the Audit Committee chair at Take-Two, resigning, apparently in a move related to the problems the company has had with filing its accounts on time. Take-Two now expects to file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2005 by the close of business on February 1, 2006, significantly later than intended. In a related move, Michael J. Malone, the recently retired Chairman of DMX Music, has been added to the Take-Two board, and existing board member Todd Emmel has been appointed acting Chairman of the Audit Committee. Separately, Take-Two officially announced that a fire had damaged the Manhattan based offices of 2K Games, Global Star and Joytech North America, as previously reported on Gamasutra. Take-Two noted that no employees were injured, but due to the significant damage sustained to these leased offices, it has temporarily relocated all of these employees, consisting primarily of marketing and administrative personnel, and to a limited extent, product testing personnel. While Take-Two is still determining the overall financial and operational impact of the fire, it announced that it does not expect any significant effect on its business.