SoftRatty: Lara Croft Saved? SCi Raising $119M From Time Warner, Others (TWX)

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Lara Croft Saved? SCi Raising $119M From Time Warner, Others (TWX)

2008-04-25 16:02:00 by Vasanth Sridharan in Silicon Alley Insider

Lara Croft SCi Interactive, the company behind the 'Tomb Raider' franchise, is raising about $119 million in cash through sale of new shares. Time Warner (TWX) is buying about $30 million of those, on top of their $90 million investment in 2006, which, at the time, got them 10% of the company. That original investment is now only worth about $11 million.

SCi had been in buyout talks recently, and rejected a potential suitor because they said the offer undervalued the company. The company is drowning in debt and posted a big operating loss for the last half of last year, so a buyout was seen as one of its few options to stay afloat. Unclear: Who that suitor was, and why Time Warner's Jeff Bewkes didn't just go ahead and buy the whole thing himself.

Regardless, investors aren't terribly excited about SCi's newest plans: Shares dropped 17% after the announcement.

UPDATE: Billionaire UK investor Robert Tchenguiz is also buying heavily into SCi's new share offering, and is expected to become the companies biggest shareholder, owning 22%, Reuters reports.