Atari just announced that CEO David Pierce has left his position in compliance with the company's restructuring plans. No explanations were given, but other board members were also axed in Atari's attempt to revitalize profits. Licensing of the Test Drive franchise has also been handed over to parent company Infogrames, as Atari wants to focus purely on publishing and distribution.

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In a press release today, Atari president and CEO David Pierce stated that Atari was undergoing another structural reorganization to reduce the company's general and administrative costs. The company is now eyeing an approximately 20% decrease in staff, which includes a 26% reduction in administrative employees.

Approved by the company's Board of Directors back in April 10, 2007, the plan is expected to be completed by the end of July. The company's entire staff have already been notified at the end of April, although there are no announcements of how many have already left Atari following the announcement.

"These actions, though difficult, are a significant first step in reorganizing Atari and demonstrate our commitment to restoring shareholder value," said Pierce. The restructuring is expected to charge an estimated US$ 0.8 to US$ 1.1 million during fiscal year of 2008.

What this means for their "PlayStation Home beater" project, we cannot tell. Things just aren't looking up for ol' Atari without the legendary Nolan Bushnell.

 

Atari and Infogrames big boss Bruno Bonnell has left all of his position within the company he built. Yesterday's Infogrames board meeting netted the promotion of Patrick Leleu as the new chairman and CEO.

Bruno Bonnell (together with Christophe Sapet and Thomas Schmider) founded Infogrames in 1983, after which it acquired GT Interactive and Hasbro Interactive - along with Atari and Game.com. With Bonnell leaving Infogrames, he also leaves his two positions in Atari: chairman and chief creative officer.

Infogrames had been implementing a "global debt restructuring plan" that ended in March 2007. Remember when David Pierce stepped up as CEO of Atari last year? Looks like Atari and Infogrames are back on the steady track financially. The revamp was done to stabilize and strengthen the company's finances and "redevelop its business". Bonnell had this to say:

It is with understandable emotions, but also reassured about its future, that I leave Infogrames after 24 years spent to build this group with the support of all its teams. Together, we have been able to show its strength and capacity to innovate, even in the worst situations. Time for business developers has logically come, after the entrepreneurial period. It’s now time for Infogrames to conquer and progress on a market as promising as interactive entertainment business.

The Board seems to have a lot of confidence on the new guy, Patrick Leleu who has been a director in the company since January of this year. He was previously the CEO of Bouygues Telecom and Noos before stepping up into Bruno Bonnell's shoes. Leleu comments, "I want to thank the Board to put its trust in me. I am convinced that Infogrames holds the assets, talents and teams to get back into the industrial competition and recover its  dynamics of growth."

Atari recently released its fiscal 2007 third quarter (which ended last December 31) results and they reported that net losses for the quarter have been sliced to US$ 700,000 from US$ 4.8 million for the same period a year earlier.

The losses were trimmed thanks to the company's decision to sell several of its franchises so they could focus their time and sweat on a few properties.

Revenues for the third quarter plummeted from a whopping US$ 100 million in 2005 to US$ 47.3 million in 2006. The company mentioned that Test Drive Unlimited (Xbox 360, PSP, PC) performed well during the said fiscal year. According to Atari CEO, David Pierce:

Specifically, Never Winter Nights 2, Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, and Test Drive Unlimited achieved our targets of quality and market place acceptance on a global basis.

Profit for the nine months to December 31 had hit US$ 95.3 million compared to a 162.2 million output a year earlier. On the bright side, their net loss for the fiscal year was down to US$ 7.5 million compared to $ 62.8 million.

Atari's financial woes as of late is no secret to us all. The company was recently involved in a heavy management shake up, not to mention that they've been selling off a good number of their development studios. Back in November, NASDAQ even warned the company that they will be de-listed if their financial status won't approve.

Surprisingly, it seems that NASDAQ suddenly had a change of heart and offered the publisher a new ultimatum. The American stock exchange group notified Atari that they would withdraw the warning if its shares trade above the US$ 1 target for ten days ending on or before January 18 2007. When the warning was first issued, Atari's common stock was worth a disappointing US$ 0.01 per share.

Furthermore, Atari took the offer and immediately executed a one-for-ten reverse stock split. While the move is still up for a bid, it simply means that ten of each of the common stocks will be be lumped together to make just one stock. That will then bumped up the price of its shares to US$ .10, much closer to the target one buck per share.

Given all these, CEO David Pierce was rather quiet as he only had this words to say: "We are pleased that our stockholders have approved this step that will enable our common stock to continue to be listed on the NASDAQ Global Market."