Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has faced a number of difficulties for some time, but still things don’t seem to work well for the company. It continues to struggle with declining revenues and profits and is also losing executives who had high positions in the company. The latest to leave is EVP Barry Cottle.
Pincus recruits exit Zynga
The position of executive vice president of games was held by Barry Cottle, according to a report from GamesBeat. Cottle’s stint at Zynga was three years long. The news of Cottle’s departure has been confirmed by a spokesperson from the company. Cottle left Electronic Arts to join Zynga in 2012. At EA, Cottle oversaw the digital game businesses, including mobile.
Cottle’s departure means a huge loss for Zynga, as he was the last one of his kind at the company. The company has faced a lot of trouble in moving to mobile gaming from Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). Mark Pincus, former chief executive of Zynga, hired a number of high-ranking executives, and Cottle was one of those.
Don Mattick served as the head of Microsoft’s Xbox business and was hired by Pincus as CEO of Zynga in July 2013. The entire executive team at Zynga has been witnessing a change since then. Mattick also recruited high-profile executives who acquired crucial positions in the company. One such hire is Alex Garden, who heads Game Studios and will be responsible for managing some of the tasks previously managed by Cottle. Social casino games were handled by Cottle, and now Alex will handle those, says the report.
Stock performing poorly as well
The fact that the company’s revenues are declining and that major executives are quitting has had a negative impact on the stock as well. Last week during trading on Friday, Zynga hit a new 52-week low of $2.23. Year to date, shares of the game maker are down by over 40%.
Presently, Zynga has a consensus rating of Hold and an average price target of $3.86. Zynga stock has received a Sell rating from two analysts and a Hold rating from six of them. Short interest in the company’s shares also increased by 12.4% to 59.2 million shares as of Sept. 15 from the Aug. 29 total of 52.7 million.
