Tiger Telematics
Encyclopedia
Tiger Telematics or Tiger, was a Swedish electronics
company
, best known for the failed Gizmondo
handheld game console.
formed Eagle Eye Scandinavian, a small electronics distribution business in Sweden. In 2002 he quietly merged the company with Floor Décor, a loss-making carpet retailer based in Jacksonville, Florida
, purely for the carpet company's shares, which were quoted on America's pink sheets
grey market, which allowed him to have a group of shareholders from whom he could raise financing for his new project. Once that was completed, Floor Décor's Michael Carrender became the company's chief financial officer.
The merged company soon renamed itself Tiger Telematics Inc. with a new ticker symbol "TIGR". It made an attempt to take on Sony and Nintendo in the UK gaming market and relocated at an office near Farnborough Airfield
. Stefan Eriksson
, who Freer had met during a previous business visit, was brought into the company with Peter Uf and Johan Enander.
show in March 2004, when its European subsidiary was then known as Gametrac Europe before renaming itself as Gizmondo Europe.
The company became known for its extravagant spending, despite not yet making a profit, let alone getting the Gizmondo off the ground. It counts amongst its exploits buying out model agency ISIS, and leasing a shop in Regent Street
in London
as its flagship showroom at a cost of £175,000 per annum. Despite the losses, Tiger Telematics gained continuing funding, including $73.1m worth of investment capital during 2005, and it issued some 24.7m shares which brought in over $200m.
The showroom also ran a launch party at the Park Lane Hotel and its own store, sparing no expense. The party was hosted by Dannii Minogue
and Tom Green
, with performances by Sting, Pharrell, Busta Rhymes
and Jamiroquai
. Sting was rumored to be paid £750,000 for the performance. In an attempt to promote the product, Eriksson competed at the 24 hours of Le Mans
in the Gizmondo-sponsored Ferrari 360 Modena GTC in 2005, but retired in the morning with mechanical troubles.
In August 2004, the company announced it was buying Swedish games developer Indie Studios, which had already agreed to create two titles for the handheld.
Mafia
.) The paper investigated a six months' loss of 200 million dollars, exhibiting large payouts to later bankrupt entities. Further, the trio's felonious history was revealed, such as Eriksson's 10-year prison sentences in 1993/94, for, among other things, conspiracy to pass counterfeit currency and attempted fraud, and the fact that Johan Enander was wanted by the Swedish police. In light of these findings, Eriksson and others resigned. One of those resignations came from Carl Freer, the chairman of the board and a director, who co-owned with Eriksson Northern Lights Software Limited. (Freer had previously sold luxury cars in France, Germany and the U.K., some of which turned out to have been stolen. In an interview for Realtid.se he claimed that he had no knowledge about that, and that it back then was very hard to verify if a car bought from another country was stolen or not. At one point, he stopped a check to a German seller since he suspected him of having delivered a stolen car, not knowing that it was a crime in Germany to stop a check once you had accepted delivery.) Northern Lights was paid a large sum of money to create Chicane and Colors, two Gizmondo games that were actually developed by Gizmondo Europe itself. Freer paid the money back to Gizmondo in order to stop an investigation into the matter. The Gizmondo company itself denied knowing anything about Eriksson's past.
In addition, Gizmondo paid $4m to Games Factory Publishing for nineteen concept games on the handheld, including a game called Typing Tutor, despite having no keyboard
peripheral
, $5.9m to Electronic Arts
to port its SSX and FIFA games and $3.5m to Northern Lights to develop Colors (an urban gang warfare first-person perspective shooter) and Chicane (a Formula One racing game being developed exclusively for Gizmondo) which was in fact developed by other Indie Studios.
Around March 2005, US-based Tiger Telematics bought UK stock market-listed games developer Warthog for almost 500,000 Tiger shares and $1.13m in cash—altogether worth $8.1m. Acquiring all of Warthog's operating subsidiaries, along with the group's debts, and Warthog's CEO, Ashley Hall, COO
Steven Law and CFO Simon Elms, to become Tiger employees. Warthog's team also has close ties with key games publishers and game franchise owners.
The company was also involved in litigation. Swedish Ogilvy Group, MTV Europe
, Christian and Timbers (landlord to their office), Handheld Gaming and Jordan Grand Prix
all filed million dollar lawsuits against the company. Gizmondo is currently under investigation in the UK for approximately £25-30 million owed to HM Revenue and Customs.
On February 21, 2006, Eriksson lost control of a million dollar Ferrari Enzo sports car which he allegedly drove while drunk on the Pacific Coast Highway in California. Eriksson claimed to have been a passenger in the car, but this claim was not supported by forensic evidence. The car itself was not owned by Eriksson, but was claimed by the Bank of Scotland
during the bankruptcy of Tiger Telematics. It was found that the crashed Ferrari and two other sport cars were leased in Britain, that lease payments since had ceased after the company collapse, and that after the export, the Mercedes
was reported stolen in Britain, resulting in an insurance pay-out. On November 7, 2006, Eriksson pleaded no contest to embezzling the two other sport cars and illegally possessing a gun and was sentenced to three years in jail.
The following month, in the same week as the Ferrari crash, Freer, Lilley, Levett and Clayton have founded a virtual network operator called Xero Mobile which has a similar business model to the Smart Ads.
In early February 2006, the High Court appointed two liquidators. David Rubin & Partners was to deal with the sale of the company's assets, thought to amount to little more than the furniture in its Regent Street showroom and Begbies Traynor
was asked to investigate exactly where Gizmondo's money had gone. The 27 staff remaining at Gizmondo's head office in Farnborough and five at its London store were made redundant.
No Gizmondo accounts for 2005 have been published. But internal figures show sales of just £1.4m in the first nine months of the year. Losses were equivalent to £500,000 a day. Directors' salaries amounted to £6.6m for the nine months. Leasing cars cost £2m-plus.
The console was deemed the worst console of all time by Gametrailers
because they claimed it drove Tiger into bankruptcy.
In April 2008, a press release was issued that an agreement had been reached between the joint liquidators of Gizmondo Europe Ltd in Liquidation and one of the company's ex Directors, Mr Carl Freer. The press release originated as a low quality copy of a letter purported to be from one of the accounting firms handling the insolvency, posted to a file sharing site. According to Mr Freer, “the shareholders of Tiger Telematics will now be able to prosper on the re-introduction of the Gizmondo into the market.”
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
company
Company
A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...
, best known for the failed Gizmondo
Gizmondo
The Gizmondo is a handheld gaming console which was released by Tiger Telematics in March 2005. The electronics design was undertaken by Plextek Limited and the industrial design by Rick Dickinson....
handheld game console.
History
In 2000, Carl FreerCarl Freer
Carl Johan Freer is a Swedish businessman and technology entrepreneur.-Business activities:Freer founded Gizmondo in 2002, and was Chairman of the board of directors at Gizmondo Europe until he resigned his position in October 2005....
formed Eagle Eye Scandinavian, a small electronics distribution business in Sweden. In 2002 he quietly merged the company with Floor Décor, a loss-making carpet retailer based in Jacksonville, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, purely for the carpet company's shares, which were quoted on America's pink sheets
Pink Sheets
OTC Markets Group, Inc., informally known as "Pink Sheets", is a private company that provides services to the U.S. over-the-counter securities market including electronic quotations, trading, messaging, and information platforms. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, OTC...
grey market, which allowed him to have a group of shareholders from whom he could raise financing for his new project. Once that was completed, Floor Décor's Michael Carrender became the company's chief financial officer.
The merged company soon renamed itself Tiger Telematics Inc. with a new ticker symbol "TIGR". It made an attempt to take on Sony and Nintendo in the UK gaming market and relocated at an office near Farnborough Airfield
Farnborough Airfield
Farnborough Airport or TAG London Farnborough Airport is an airport situated in Farnborough, Rushmoor, Hampshire, England...
. Stefan Eriksson
Stefan Eriksson
Bo Stefan M. Eriksson is a Swedish criminal from Uppsala involved in the UK gaming company Gizmondo until it became insolvent in 2005. In 2006 he became known for wrecking an Enzo Ferrari in southern California, USA...
, who Freer had met during a previous business visit, was brought into the company with Peter Uf and Johan Enander.
Gizmondo launch
The Gizmondo device made its debut as a concept product at the German CeBITCeBIT
CeBIT is the world's largest and most international computer expo. CeBIT is held each year on the world's largest fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology...
show in March 2004, when its European subsidiary was then known as Gametrac Europe before renaming itself as Gizmondo Europe.
The company became known for its extravagant spending, despite not yet making a profit, let alone getting the Gizmondo off the ground. It counts amongst its exploits buying out model agency ISIS, and leasing a shop in Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
as its flagship showroom at a cost of £175,000 per annum. Despite the losses, Tiger Telematics gained continuing funding, including $73.1m worth of investment capital during 2005, and it issued some 24.7m shares which brought in over $200m.
The showroom also ran a launch party at the Park Lane Hotel and its own store, sparing no expense. The party was hosted by Dannii Minogue
Dannii Minogue
Danielle Jane "Dannii" Minogue is an Australian singer-songwriter, actress, television personality, radio personality, fashion designer and model...
and Tom Green
Tom Green
Michael Thomas "Tom" Green is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, talk show host and media personality. Best known for his shock humour brand of comedy, Green found mainstream prominence via his MTV television show The Tom Green Show...
, with performances by Sting, Pharrell, Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes
Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., better known by his stage name Busta Rhymes ,Smith is an American rapper, producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the alias Busta Rhymes after NFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes...
and Jamiroquai
Jamiroquai
Jamiroquai is a British jazz funk and acid jazz band formed in 1992. Jamiroquai were initially the most prominent component in the early-1990s London-based acid jazz movement, alongside groups such as Incognito, the James Taylor Quartet, and the Brand New Heavies. Other Acid Jazz artists such as...
. Sting was rumored to be paid £750,000 for the performance. In an attempt to promote the product, Eriksson competed at the 24 hours of Le Mans
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...
in the Gizmondo-sponsored Ferrari 360 Modena GTC in 2005, but retired in the morning with mechanical troubles.
In August 2004, the company announced it was buying Swedish games developer Indie Studios, which had already agreed to create two titles for the handheld.
Organised crime links
In October 2005, shortly after Gizmondo was released in America, a Swedish yellow-page paper printed a story linking Stefan Eriksson and two other Swedish Gizmondo Europe executives to the Swedish crime ring "Uppsalamaffian" (UppsalaUppsala
- Economy :Today Uppsala is well established in medical research and recognized for its leading position in biotechnology.*Abbott Medical Optics *GE Healthcare*Pfizer *Phadia, an offshoot of Pharmacia*Fresenius*Q-Med...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
.) The paper investigated a six months' loss of 200 million dollars, exhibiting large payouts to later bankrupt entities. Further, the trio's felonious history was revealed, such as Eriksson's 10-year prison sentences in 1993/94, for, among other things, conspiracy to pass counterfeit currency and attempted fraud, and the fact that Johan Enander was wanted by the Swedish police. In light of these findings, Eriksson and others resigned. One of those resignations came from Carl Freer, the chairman of the board and a director, who co-owned with Eriksson Northern Lights Software Limited. (Freer had previously sold luxury cars in France, Germany and the U.K., some of which turned out to have been stolen. In an interview for Realtid.se he claimed that he had no knowledge about that, and that it back then was very hard to verify if a car bought from another country was stolen or not. At one point, he stopped a check to a German seller since he suspected him of having delivered a stolen car, not knowing that it was a crime in Germany to stop a check once you had accepted delivery.) Northern Lights was paid a large sum of money to create Chicane and Colors, two Gizmondo games that were actually developed by Gizmondo Europe itself. Freer paid the money back to Gizmondo in order to stop an investigation into the matter. The Gizmondo company itself denied knowing anything about Eriksson's past.
In addition, Gizmondo paid $4m to Games Factory Publishing for nineteen concept games on the handheld, including a game called Typing Tutor, despite having no keyboard
Computer keyboard
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
peripheral
Peripheral
A peripheral is a device attached to a host computer, but not part of it, and is more or less dependent on the host. It expands the host's capabilities, but does not form part of the core computer architecture....
, $5.9m to Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
to port its SSX and FIFA games and $3.5m to Northern Lights to develop Colors (an urban gang warfare first-person perspective shooter) and Chicane (a Formula One racing game being developed exclusively for Gizmondo) which was in fact developed by other Indie Studios.
Around March 2005, US-based Tiger Telematics bought UK stock market-listed games developer Warthog for almost 500,000 Tiger shares and $1.13m in cash—altogether worth $8.1m. Acquiring all of Warthog's operating subsidiaries, along with the group's debts, and Warthog's CEO, Ashley Hall, COO
Chief operating officer
A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...
Steven Law and CFO Simon Elms, to become Tiger employees. Warthog's team also has close ties with key games publishers and game franchise owners.
Bankruptcy
On January 23, 2006, the UK based arm, Gizmondo Europe (GE) declared bankruptcy. Gizmondo haemorrhaged hundreds of millions of dollars before filing for bankruptcy: in 2004, Tiger Telematics reported a loss of $99.29 million, and between January and September 2005, they lost $210 million, "Principally due to development costs for the Gizmondo and non-cash expenses associated with shares of restricted common stock issued for services". In other words, it had bartered shares in lieu of cash payments. Soon after Gizmondo retail locations in both the US and the UK closed, and the Gizmondo website was shut down. The game development arm of Gizmondo also went out of business.The company was also involved in litigation. Swedish Ogilvy Group, MTV Europe
MTV Europe
MTV Europe is a pan-European 24-hour entertainment cable and digital television network launched on August 1, 1987. Initially, the channel served all regions within Europe being one of the very few channels that targeted the entire European continent...
, Christian and Timbers (landlord to their office), Handheld Gaming and Jordan Grand Prix
Jordan Grand Prix
Jordan Grand Prix was a Formula One constructor that competed from 1991 to 2005. The team is named after Irish businessman and founder Eddie Jordan...
all filed million dollar lawsuits against the company. Gizmondo is currently under investigation in the UK for approximately £25-30 million owed to HM Revenue and Customs.
On February 21, 2006, Eriksson lost control of a million dollar Ferrari Enzo sports car which he allegedly drove while drunk on the Pacific Coast Highway in California. Eriksson claimed to have been a passenger in the car, but this claim was not supported by forensic evidence. The car itself was not owned by Eriksson, but was claimed by the Bank of Scotland
Bank of Scotland
The Bank of Scotland plc is a commercial and clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland. With a history dating to the 17th century, it is the second oldest surviving bank in what is now the United Kingdom, and is the only commercial institution created by the Parliament of Scotland to...
during the bankruptcy of Tiger Telematics. It was found that the crashed Ferrari and two other sport cars were leased in Britain, that lease payments since had ceased after the company collapse, and that after the export, the Mercedes
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
was reported stolen in Britain, resulting in an insurance pay-out. On November 7, 2006, Eriksson pleaded no contest to embezzling the two other sport cars and illegally possessing a gun and was sentenced to three years in jail.
The following month, in the same week as the Ferrari crash, Freer, Lilley, Levett and Clayton have founded a virtual network operator called Xero Mobile which has a similar business model to the Smart Ads.
In early February 2006, the High Court appointed two liquidators. David Rubin & Partners was to deal with the sale of the company's assets, thought to amount to little more than the furniture in its Regent Street showroom and Begbies Traynor
Begbies Traynor
Begbies Traynor is a firm specialising in corporate restructuring. They were formed in 1989, expanded through mergers and organic growth and were floated in 2004. The company employs over 500 people and has 45 offices around the United Kingdom.-History:The company was formed as Traynor & Partners...
was asked to investigate exactly where Gizmondo's money had gone. The 27 staff remaining at Gizmondo's head office in Farnborough and five at its London store were made redundant.
No Gizmondo accounts for 2005 have been published. But internal figures show sales of just £1.4m in the first nine months of the year. Losses were equivalent to £500,000 a day. Directors' salaries amounted to £6.6m for the nine months. Leasing cars cost £2m-plus.
The console was deemed the worst console of all time by Gametrailers
GameTrailers
GameTrailers is a media website that specializes in video game related content. It provides free access to original programming , game trailers and recorded game play. Along with standard definition , many of the video clips are offered in a higher resolution .Users can upload videos, create...
because they claimed it drove Tiger into bankruptcy.
Carl Freer buys IPR Assets
In November 2007, Carl Freer stated in an interview with the Swedish-American journalist Hans Sandberg that he was interested in starting up production of the Gizmondo again.In April 2008, a press release was issued that an agreement had been reached between the joint liquidators of Gizmondo Europe Ltd in Liquidation and one of the company's ex Directors, Mr Carl Freer. The press release originated as a low quality copy of a letter purported to be from one of the accounting firms handling the insolvency, posted to a file sharing site. According to Mr Freer, “the shareholders of Tiger Telematics will now be able to prosper on the re-introduction of the Gizmondo into the market.”