Take-Two Hit with $50M Q1 Losses

It looks like the 2009 fiscal year is getting off to a rough start for Take-Two. Addressing investors this week, the company posted its first quarter numbers and revealed that it has taken a loss of $50 million, up from the $38 million loss posted during the same period last year. Ironically, the company’s actual revenue was up for the quarter, up roughly 7 percent from $240.4 million last year to $256.8 million for this most recent quarter. The loss for the quarter in spite of higher revenue was blamed on the higher than expected costs related to “unusual legal matters” related mainly to the attempted takeover by Electronic Arts, business reorganization, marketing, and R&D costs.

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Capcom Hit by $3.1 Billion Bank Mistake

You’ve got to feel a little sorry for Capcom this morning. In the wake of a sagging worldwide economy, you know it had to stun execs at the company when they saw that the Japan branch of Swiss bank UBS had placed an order for a whopping 3 trillion yen ($3.06 billion) in convertible bonds from the game publisher. Of course, that was before UBS double checked its decimal point and realized it had only meant to order 30 million yen ($306k USD) in bonds. Oops.

UBS Securities Japan said that it had intended to place the 30 million yen order in a cross-trade deal, simultaneously buying and selling the bonds, but that its computer system encountered a glitch, which mistakenly placed an order 100,000 times larger than it should have been. Luckily for UBS, the order was placed during after hours trading, and the bank was able to cancel the FUBAR order without suffering any cost or penalties, and Capcom received a letter of apology from the Tokyo Stock Exchange over the issue.

Although it looks like none of the parties involved were irreparably damaged due to the snafu, the mistake is the largest monetary mistake in the history of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. This isn’t the first time UBS has botched its orders the Tokyo stock market. In 2001, UBS messed up a sell order which hurt the Tokyo Stock Exchange debut of Japanese advertising agency, Dentsu, Inc., and in 2005 UBS ended up profiting from a misplaced order by a trader for recruitment firm J-Com Co.

Maybe it’s just me, but if a bank dealing in billion dollar transactions can’t be bothered to have someone double check a transaction before it’s posted, maybe it’s time to start looking for another bank.