Redstone sells majority stake in Midway Games

NEW YORK - Sumner Redstone, the US media mogul with investments in MTV and CBS, has sold his controlling stake in the computer games company behind 'Mortal Kombat' for a massive loss loss in order to repay debts.

Redstone offloaded his 87.2% stake in Midway Games for $100,000, or 0.12 cents per share, to private investor Mark Thomas who will assume $70m in debt at the company.

The sale comes at a big discount to Midway's market capitalisation of about $30m.

It is part of a financial restructuring that Redstone is undertaking to refinance $800m of his $1.6bn of debt at his private holding company -- National Amusements -- before the end of the year. 

Redstone's borrowings were formerly secured against his holdings in Viacom, MTV's owner, and CBS Corporation, however the economic crisis has decreased the value of these firms' shares and yesterday his combined stake equated to $1.43bn, which is insufficient to secure new loans. 

He has refused to sell any more shares in Viacom or CBS after selling about $230m worth earlier in the year to meet debt payments.

Redstone is reportedly looking to offload some of his other assets, including a $90m stake in WMS Industries, a slot-machine maker, and some of National Amusements' 1,500 movie theatres.

As well as 'Mortal Kombat', which is available in a vast range of titles the latest of which is 'Mortal Kombat VS. DC Universe' for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles, Midway is also behind games such as 'TNA Impact', 'Blitz The League II', 'Wheelman' and 'Unreal Tournament 3'.

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