The top three executives at the company behind Lara Croft were fired yesterday after shareholders of SCi Entertainment, the computer games group, demanded scalps following a severe profits warning this month.

Jane Cavanagh, chief executive, Bill Ennis, her partner who is also managing director of the company's publishing division, and Rob Murray, managing director, studios, have left “with immediate effect”.

Although the public language was circumspect, all three were asked to leave by Tim Ryan, the chairman, who spoke to the company's top 20 investors, representing more than 50 per cent of the shares, and said that the “unanimous view was that there was no confidence in the current management team”.

The shares rose 22p to 70p. SCi's investors include Robert Tchenguiz, the entrepreneur, Schroders and Time Warner - all are sitting on significant losses because of the collapse in the company's value.

The three executives will have their contracts paid out, with Ms Cavanagh receiving about £600,000, while Mr Ennis and Mr Murray will take away a similar amount between them.

Phil Rogers, who joined the company ten months ago, is to take over as chief executive. He previously worked in corporate development at Electronic Arts, SCi's larger rival. He will begin an emergency business review, although he is not inviting takeover bids because the board believes that a sale at this point would value the company too cheaply. It is a dismal end for a trio who in 2005 pulled off a coup with the takeover of the far larger Eidos. Initially, Eidos, home to Lara Croft's Tomb Raider, stabilised but the company has been slow to take advantage of the new generation of games consoles.

A delay to the release of the next version of Tomb Raider for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 left the company facing a £30million cash shortfall for the current financial year.

SCi said that it had “received proposals from potential partners” to plug the gap and it is thought to be looking at a range of debt and equity financing options. However, on present valuations, any new investor would get about a third of the shares if they pumped in £30million.

Mr Ryan said that SCi's strength was its ability to “generate intellectual property” - such as Kane and Lynch, which sold more than a million over the Christmas period and has been used already as the basis for a Hollywood film made by Lionsgate.

However, giving a hint as to where the business review would focus, he conceded that the company had not fully appreciated the need to release games on all formats simultaneously and that product distribution “was not a core strength”.

SCi’s financial problems come at a time when the computer games industry is nearing the top of its cycle. Game Group, Britain’s largest retailer in the sector, lifted revenues by 32 per cent over Christmas amid buoyant sales of the Nintendo Wii, Play-Station 3 and XBox 360.

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