THE company responsible for gun-toting cyber heroine Lara Croft saw its market value slump yesterday as it moved to cool speculation about the price of a potential takeover deal.

Eidos - best known for its Tomb Raider series - said it opened its books to potential buyers after revealing it was in talks in August.

But it said: "On the basis of these recent discussions, the likelihood and extent of any premium achievable to the market price prevailing before the recent speculative movements is unclear."

The company said talks were continuing and there could be no assurance they would lead to an offer.

Shares in the company have more than halved since the summer, but rose seven per cent on Friday amid speculation about the level of a possible deal.

This led the company to announce to the London Stock Exchange that there was no particular reason for the surge.

It was followed by yesterday's statement, in which Eidos said it was reliant on titles coming through in the second half to reverse first-half losses.

Eidos suffered a setback last October when technical adjustments forced it to delay the release of the computer version of Championship Manager 5 before Christmas.

The group has been trying to recover from a slump in the games market that forced it into the red last year.

Expectations for the sector's festive performance are generally low. Last week, retailer Woolworths said a shortage of new electronic games hardware contributed to lacklustre trading, while analysts expect retailer Game to deliver a downbeat trading statement today.