According to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, THQ‘s former Chief Executive Officer Brian Farrell pulled in almost $3,000 last week by selling all of his remaining stock in the once-mighty video game publisher.
The SEC filing — which was posted today — shows that Farrell disposed of 50,481 shares of THQ stock for just $0.058 per share on February 7, 2013. By our math that works out to just under $2,928.
Brian Farrell joined THQ in July 1991 as the company’s Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The following year Farrell left his CFO position to become the publisher’s Chief Operating Officer, where he remained until he took over as CEO in 1995.
For the vast majority of Farrell’s time at the helm of THQ the video game publisher was relatively successful and built a name for itself with brands such as Saints Row, Red Faction, and Company of Heroes, in addition to developing licensed products for WWE, Nickelodeon, and Disney. Despite the success, the last few years of Farrell’s reign were marred by the failure of the Warhammer 40K MMO to break out of development hell and the complete financial disaster that was uDraw Game Tablet — which left the company holding millions of the unsold devices in their inventory.
The result of those two massive mistakes was; a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last December, an auction of the publisher’s assets last month (which broke up the corporation), the formal termination of the company’s remaining executives earlier this month, and now a mere $3,000 to show for Farrell’s 21 years at THQ.
On the bright side, many of THQ’s former brands (and studios) have found good homes in the bankruptcy auction. Kock Media now owns the Saints Row and Metro IPs along with Volition studio, Take-Two picked up Evolve, Crytek is continuing their work on the next Homefront game (and they started up a new studio for former Vigil employees), and Ubisoft acquired THQ Montreal.
THQ still has one asset sale left to go before the last nail in the publisher’s coffin is hammered in and we will be sure to let you know as soon as any details are announced on that process.
