More Stock Trouble For Sumner Redstone

When it rains, it pours, especially if you’re over-leveraged Sumner Redstone. Despite Monday’s stock market rally, the share price for his videogame publisher Midway Games hit the skids and lost a whopping 12% of its market value. The maker of titles Unreal Tournament 3 and Mortal Kombat fell 15 cents to close at $1.10. That’s down 67.1% from its year-ago price. As Forbes.com noted, Midway Games had “a doozy of a day” — making Redstone’s really rotten. His holding company National Amusements already had to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares in Viacom and CBS at rock bottom prices. Forbes speculated Monday that perhaps Redstone was “going to turn around and lend the money to the struggling Midway Games just to keep the company afloat”. Redstone already is said to be in talks with bankers to renegotiate terms on $1.6 billion in debt because of the losses in value of his contrlling shares of CBS and Viacom used as collateral. Geez, it wasn’t long ago that other media moguls were envious of Redstone for having the foresight to invest in videogames — which he once boasted were “the hottest part of the entertainment industry” — not for Viacom but for his personal portfolio. Are they feeling sorry for Sumner now? Anyone? Anyone?

Sumner Sells $233M Stock In Viacom/CBS