In an interesting development, frustrated Take-Two Interactive shareholders ousted five of six board members up for re-election, including the chief executive, who was booted from the boardroom and the executive suite. Dissident investors voted in five new directors at annual shareholders meeting. The new board then quickly met and named Strauss Zelnick as chairman, a veteran media executive who had earlier involved with BMG Entertainment, the global music label, and 20th Century Fox, the movie studio.
The firm in its statement has said that Take-Two’s former chief executive Paul Eibeler is now working with the board in order to ensure and orderly and effective transition, at the video game publisher. According to filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission the new board members represent an investor group of Oppenheimer Funds Inc., D. E. Shaw & Co., S.A.C. Capital and Tudor Investment Corp., that holds somewhere around 45 percent stake in the company.
The company has been caught up in controversy for a series of financial irregularities, from overstated profits to illegally backdated stock options. After years of management blunders and discomforting marketing strategy, agitated shareholders said a boardroom shake-up was the only way to correct the accounting and ethical lapses of Take-Two.
The newly appointed chairman, Strauss Zelenick, speaking over the future course of the company said, ‘the new board plans to put in place strategies designed to revitalize Take-Two, focus on supporting and enhancing its creative output, improve its margins and ensure that the 2007 release pipeline meets expectations’.
