Trond-Aas
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Former Funcom CEO investigated for insider trading
Trond Arne Aas, who stepped down as CEO of Funcom the day before The Secret World launched, is back in the spotlight. Norwegian authorities are investigating Aas for allegations of insider trading. An anonymous source reported to The Escapist that Aas' position change to a chief strategy advisor allowed him to attempt to sell off company stock without attracting scrutiny. As of press time, 650,000 of his 1.5 million shares have successfully sold. Stocks were valued at $17.60 a share when the game launched on July 2nd, but were worth $2.17 as of yesterday. Investigators are questioning whether Aas sold his stocks based on insider knowledge or if it was just coincidental timing.
Funcom to open Montréal studio
Word got out earlier today that Funcom is establishing a new game development studio in Montréal. If your French is up to snuff, you can read all about it on Les Affaires, but Funcom was quick to make an announcement of their expansion plans. According to their official release, the new studio is being established in cooperation with Investissement Québec, with Ole Schreiner as CEO of the Montréal studio. Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas made a statement on Funcom's reasons for establishing a Québec studio: "We are excited about the opportunity that Montréal represents to our company, not only because of the great incentives offered by Québec, but also the authorities' strong commitment to training qualified video games personnel and building a video games cluster in Montréal and Québec."
Funcom CEO sells company stock
Sure it may be completely innocent, but it's interesting nonetheless. According to a recent announcement, Funcom's CEO Trond Aas has recently sold 400,000 shares of his company's stock. The announcement also states that these shares were sold "primarily to cover Mr. Aas' acquisition costs of the shares as well as accumulated wealth tax costs of the past six years as a result of the holdings in Funcom." This 400,000 number represents only a fraction of the shares owned by the CEO.While this Brighthub article tends to focus on the timing of the sale, pointing out that Age of Conan has already lost nearly half of its customers, no official connection has been made. However, the stock's price has fallen quite dramatically lately, closing at $13.60 per share on August 22, 2008, which is down from $55.50 per share on Age of Conan's release in May.Update: This is a take on the Brighthub article more than anything, blaming AoC for everything, not to be confused with this original post. Plus, we get a look at the actual announcement about the stock sales itself. Sorry for any confusion of duplicates.
