- Nicolas Gaume
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Nicolas Gaume is a French entrepreneur and creator of video games born 7 February 1971 in Arcachon, France. He is currently the CEO of Mimesis Republic and President of the Syndicat National des Jeux Vidéo. He is best known for being the founder and CEO of Kalisto Entertainment, a bankrupted video game company, from 1990 to 2002. Gaume is the son of a couple of Arcachon hoteliers and a member of a family of local notables. His grandfather was Louis Gaume a real estate developer known for developing the Pyla in the 1920 [1].
Contents
Atreid Concept
In 1990, after dropping higher business education, Nicolas Gaume founded the company Atreid Concept with friends to create video games in Bordeaux. Atreid is supported by Apple, whose CEO is then John Sculley, thanks to a former executive of French firm at the apple. Atreid publishes a series of several games for Macintosh, 'including SCOUT' and Fury of the Furies. The company has also made several minor productions on game consoles, including Pac in Time, edited by Namco Corporation.
Mindscape Bordeaux
Faced with technological changes - the replacement of floppy disks by CD-ROM - and financial imperatives, Nicolas Gaume sells Atreid Concept to British group Pearson, who just bought the publisher of multimedia products Mindscape. The company becomes Mindscape Bordeaux and Pearson take care of a deficit of 2.5 million francs.
Under that name, Nicolas Gaume develops with his teams a number of titles, including the race car PCAl Unser, Jr.. It also attempts to diversify into publishing and the role-play to exploit its rich universe of games, but without clear success.
Kalisto Entertainment
In 1996, Pearson is divesting its multimedia business and offers Nicolas Gaume to buy back his company, which then becomes Kalisto Entertainment. The company attracts attention through its creativity with titles such asDark Earth(1997) andNightmare Creatures,although sales are not always there.
In 1999, with several development contracts underway, Nicolas Gaume decides to introduce Kalisto of the "growth" segment of the Paris Stock Exchange in order to finance new projects. The goal is simple: by taking the initial financial risk in innovative projects, the developer hopes to be in a stronger position with publishers. He also wishes to tackle the online gaming market, thereby changing his business model: selling its games in the form of services to telecom operators rather than as products to publishers.
Meanwhile, Kalisto developsThe Fifth Element,adapted from the film Luc Besson, and published by Ubisoft, which sells 750,000 copies.
Backed by Crédit Lyonnais, which is co-owner of Kalisto via Luxembourg holding Kalisto Finance SA [2], the IPO Kalisto held in June 1999.
Nicolas Gaume announced a forecast turnover of 140 million francs for the year 2000. The press is wildly enthusiastic and the young CEO seems to spend more and more time in interviews and seminars, and to be gradually cutting himself from his studio. Thanks to his many social relations, Nicolas Gaume welcomes in its Board of Directors Franck Riboud, President of Danone and Emmanuel Chain, the former star reporter M6. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, then finance minister, had him appointed to the Economic and Social Council. Jacques Chirac invites him to join him on official travel in Asia.
In 2000, however, Nicolas Gaume is canceling a planned capital increase and falls back on a loan of 20 million euros in July 2000, managed by Credit Lyonnais[3].
In March 2001, Kalisto must announce its results for Fiscal Year 2000 to its investors. Nicolas Gaume had push back twice the deadline without any clear explanation. The stock, which had made the delight of investors as well as speculators, collapsed by 66% [4].
On March 12, 2001, Nicolas Gaume finally announces its results: instead of the estimated of 170 millions francs, there is only 19 million francs of turnover. There is also a loss of 175 million francs.
The CEO justifies this unfortunate state of affairs by the deferral of orders from publishers in what is a fluctuant video game market. He also points out to the loss of a contract with Wanadoo (Internet subsidiary of France Telecom) previously found safe enough to be included in the results forecast [4].
A month later, Nicolas Gaume announces results for first quarter 2001, with a turnover of 32 million francs. He was later accused of artificially generated much of this revenue through a Swiss company of which he is a shareholder [5].
In early 2002, faced with the impossibility of ensuring the future of Kalsito and the collapse of its stock price, Nicolas Gaume approaches the hedge fund Global Emerging Markets to lend the company 15 million euros. The Commission des Operations de Bourse, the French Stock Market Authority now known as Authorité des Marchés Financiers, vetoed this financing plan in February 2002,'it is assumed because of the high yield requested by the fund.
In April 2002, Kalisto is put in forced liquidation, the liability is estimated at 50 million euros. Subsequently, in several interviews, Nicolas Gaume would blame his bank, Credit Lyonnais, saying he had trusted his bankers. Kalisto is delisted from the stock market on August 19, 2002.
Disciplinary, civil and criminal lawsuits
On 12 December 2002, the Commission des Operations de Bourse (COB), which had opened an investigation, condemned Nicolas Gaume up to 300,000 euros for repeated wrongful information of its shareholders in connection with the management of a publicly traded company (reduced to 200,000 euros in appeal) [6]. The COB notes in particular that "the communication of the company had systematically concealed Kalisto's (...) problems and put forward very optimistic forecasts [7] ".
In January 2003, 270 minority shareholders sued the Crédit Lyonnais, a better target than the young CEO to claim damages for their losses [8].
In July 2003, Nicolas Gaume and its board members are sued for criminal charges by the minority shareholders of Kalisto. They are freed of criminal charges in 2006, the Bordeaux court considerering it unnecessary to open a judicial investigation, which the firm Deminor, specializing in the defense of minority shareholders, said was "an incredible leniency" [9]. A civil action is still ongoing, and the hearing of the argument was held November 24, 2010, before the college of the 9th Chamber of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris. The Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris said it would issue its verdict in March 2011[9].
Some will be quick to give indulgence to a young CEO who has made mistakes.[10] Nicolas Gaume tried to justify himself in a book, Citizen Game. In a op-ed in the daily "Les Echos", the CEO of Richelieu Finance, Gerard Augustin-Normand, chose however to call Nicolas Gaume a "liar [11] ". Nicolas Gaume is also severely challenged by the journalist Jean Montaldo in his book The thieves market (Albin Michel, 2003).[12]
Post Kalisto
Subsequent to the liquidation of Kalisto, Nicolas Gaume holds a number of positions in companies and video game content in Europe. He leads in particular the Paris studios of Ubisoft Entertainment from March to November 2003. He was vice president of the mobile games branch of Lagardère Active [13]. He advises the British publisher Codemasters. He also holds a number of seats on boards of directors of companies.
Mimesis Republic
In 2007, Nicolas Gaume founded with Sebastien Lombardo, founder and CEO of Valtech IT services company, the company Mimesis Republic, which, after exploring different directions, has set a goal of creating games in the rapidly expanding social gaming segment.' The first project, bought from the company UZIK, is called Black Mamba and then Mamba Nation [14].
In July 2010, Mimesis Republic, which has not yet launch its product, raised 7 million euros from a number of high profile French business angels, including Marc Simoncini, CEO and founder of dating site Meetic, Jean-Emile Rosenblum, founder and director of Pixmania and French billionaire François Pinault, through his holding company Artemis SA [15]
Miscellaneous
In parallel to Kalisto, Nicolas Gaume has also created and run in 1994 NGM Productions, a children book publishing company in China. NGM edited among other series of Pere Castor (Flammarion) or even Incollables (Play Bac) from 1994 until 1999. He also participated in the creation in 1995 of one of the first French web agencies, Wcube and, in 2000, of a company promotng and marketing wine on the Internet, winealley.com.[16]
Publications
- 2005:Citizen Game, Ed Anne Carrère, 405 pages.
See also
References
- ^ "Gaume Group - History" Group Gaume
- ^ "Kalisto Finance SA Memorial - Luxembourg, [1]
- ^ "Kalisto : Crédit Lyonnais poursuivi "The Echoes No. 18830 of January 24, 2003 • page 24
- ^ a b "Kalisto, le prix de la gloire" Transfert.net, [2]
- ^ "Au nom du petit porteur"Liberation, [3]
- ^ "Kalisto: Nicolas Gaume condamné par la COB,The EchoesNo. 18802 of December 13, 2002 • Page 18
- ^ " Deminor - Procedures Collective: Kalisto Entertainment Deminor [4]
- '^ "Kalisto: Crédit Lyonnais assigné The Echoes No. 18830 of January 24, 2003 • page 24
- ^ a b "Deminor - Procedures Collective: Kalisto Entertainment Deminor, [5]
- ^ "The case ... or how Kalisto Nicolas Gaume is completely cleared by the courts! Berrebi.org, [6]
- '^ " The Cheaters. In their diversity The EchoesNo. 18385 of April 17, 2001 • page 59
- ^ "Le marché aux voleurs" Amazon.fr, [7]
- ^ "Linkedin - Profile - Nicolas Gaume linkedin, [8]
- ^ "Black Mamba" Mamba Nation, [9]
- ^ "Paris Trade Registry - Articles of Association of Mimesis Republic SA updated on July 8, 2010 "Tribunal de Commerce de Paris, [10]
- ^ " Nicolas Gaume - Profile on Viadeo Viadeo, [11]
External links
Categories:- French businesspeople
- Businesspeople in software
- Living people
- French video game designers
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