Mad Catz In Trouble After Shares Plummet And CEO Resigns

Mad Catz is best known for creating various peripherals including keyboards, mice, headsets and more while adopting a very distinctive style. This gives their product range a unique aesthetic, and makes anything they produce instantly recognizable. Whether many of these complicated constructions are as comfortable as more simplistic solutions is topic up for discussion. Not only that, creating any mass market product involves a great deal of research and development. Furthermore, competition within the peripherals market is fierce with Corsair, Roccat, Logitech, Mionix, Cooler Master and more all vying for people’s hard earner cash. As a result, the financial situation at the company looks very bleak and their share value has fallen by more than 25% today!

On another note, Mad Catz announced some sweeping changes to the management team. Firstly, the company’s president and CEO, Darren Richardson resigned his position with immediate effect. In a similar fashion, the chair of the board of directors and member of the board’s audit committee, Thomas Brown resigned on Friday. That’s not the end though as Mad Catz’s senior vice president of business affairs, general counsel and corporate secretary, Whitney Peterson also handed in her resignation. The timing for the CEO’s resignation is quite worrying and comes just one day before Mad Catz’s financial reports are published. The company released a statement describing these changes which reads:

“We recognize the tremendous value that Thomas, Darren, and Whitney have brought to Mad Catz during their tenure and thank them for their many contributions throughout the years,”

“Looking ahead, we are confident that we have a talented leadership team in place that will enable us to steer the company on a steady course in its operations and financial performance as we look to grow our business and reward our shareholders.”

Clearly, the company’s financial standing is in disarray and I’m expecting the results to tomorrow to be alarming. Only time will tell if Mad Catz struggles to remain in business, but the picture so far doesn’t look very promising.

Have you had a positive experience with Mad Catz hardware?