Bidding for Eidos heats up

In what is looking like an Olympic 1500 meters race with all the jostling and maneuvering the race to buy Eidos looks set to have moved to another level. There are several big names in the race to sign the ailing games giant. Infogrames continues to look like the frontrunner in the race, despite its own reported financial troubles. The Financial Times reports the French software publisher is pressing ahead with plans to acquire the parent firm of Lara Croft and publishers of Championship Manager, saying a $1.06 billion dollar offer has reached the final stage of talks and could be completed within weeks (though talks could still fall through over several issues). It has been reported across the internet that UbiSoft has apparently entered the bidding, though that company's bid has not been discovered. The company refuses to confirm such a bit at this time.

Should Infogrames' bid be accepted, there would more than likely be some big shake-ups in the Eidos front office, according to the Financial Times. Charles Cornwall, Eidos chief executive and founder, is not expected to stay with the merged company. Instead, Eidos' head of development, Jeremy Heath-Smith, would assume the office's top spot. Heath-Smith was awarded a $6 million bonus in December, despite a $47 million loss by the company.