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 loki old fart wrote:
Sounds like he needs someone to carry the can. When it all goes tits up.

Winner!

Kirby still thinks he will be on the board at some level. As mentioned else where, most of these statements are fairly well thought out, so his attempt to be humble means he'll still be on the board, probably as chairman. The current board members have been there for a long time and thus will continue to bow down to Lord Kirby.

Anyone who comes in will have a huge, uphill battle to fight against the current player base, FLGS and the board themselves. Also, as the board hires the CEO, chances are it will be a person who sucks up to them and tells them what they want to hear. I'm sure they will find someone who thinks they can turn things around with their current business model and is highly motivated. My guess is the new CEO will go direct sales only, no FLGS sales. When GW collapses, he'll get blamed, while the rest of the board pulls the eject button and sells out to someone.

Maybe I'll mail Brian D. Goldner's bio to GW. He should be the next CEO of GW anyway.

sand.zzz wrote:
Has this been authenticated yet? I doubt its real, but in the off chance that it is, wow. If this guy is representative of GW's leadership as a whole, then this company is most certainly doomed. From the content to the attitude and delivery - it reeks of willful ignorance and downright terrible management. If your business starts losing money, or net declines - you figure out why. You don't decide why.

But you *obviously* do that behind closed doors and not in an annual report. The point is to project confidence in the future of your business, not fall on your sword and watch share prices plummet even farther. Kirby's personal style may be odd and hyperbolic, but any CEO would be trying to find silver linings in the clouds of a poor annual report.


Regarding their CEO hiring process, note that he doesn't say they won't be using executive search firms or focusing on internal candidates. It's a little odd to me that he already identified a single day to interview all candidates, and that he announced that the choice will be decided one week later. What if a dream candidate has something important going on that day? CEOs can't call in sick or just skip important functions in their current positions. Also, wouldn't you want to spend at least a full day with each candidate before handing them the keys? It could be that this will happen before November, but I tend to think it means that they have their person already, and that he or she may be internal.

Now, it's more than a little strange to say that the resume doesn't matter. Obviously it does, so why say otherwise? But then maybe he's laying groundwork because the chosen one has a lighter resume than you'd expect. Kirby may come across like a rambling madman at times in these things, but we shouldn't assume that the things he says aren't deliberate.

 Absolutionis wrote:
If this somehow ends up being fake, then it comes to question why it exists on the official GW investors site. It's damaging either way.

$6.8m website, 3D smokescreen/rambling, more cost cutting, more attitude over skills and amazing (but typical) arrogance... Even with all this I don't think its fake. The other two files uploaded the same day (proxy form and annual meeting notice) sure look legit.

As far as sales numbers go I think this preamble is preparing investors for a goodly drop in revenue, perhaps as high as 10%.

Perhaps we should have a pool or set up a poll: revenue up, flat, down 5%, down 10%...

WayneTheGame wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.

I wonder... was all of that nonsense policy from Kirby? Could a new CEO actually turn the ship around and rekindle relationships with retailers, allow them to sell online at a discount, bring back the bitz, etc?

Despite the immense amount of ill-feeling that GW have managed to generate in their former fans and supporters, there is IMO still the potential for a renaissance.

I think a lot of things GW did over the past five+ years were stupid, but not everything. I wouldn't bring bitz back, not in the form they were at any rate, but sprue frames of spare parts could easily be sold. I think one man shops are a stupid idea considering the sampling and support that new recruits need. Reversing that is simply a matter of recruiting and training more staff, and reconnecting with veterans, clubs and independents.

A lot of people believe that part of GW's problem is a strong yes man culture -- group think -- around Kirby, that prevents the company from taking the steps we regard as important for reconnecting with the "community" and restoring the company to health.

From that angle, a new guy who broke free of the supposed Kirby kulture could I think turn things around pretty quickly.

That first part about success strikes me as him saying "Size doesn't matter, baby. It's how you use it that makes you good".

All-in-all it seems like he is trying to keep investors from jumping ship because he has kept it a float for this long when others wouldn't.

It was quite commonly known I thought that he was looking to retire soon-ish.

Size doesn't necessarily matter, or rather growth for its own sake is not necessarily a goal worth pursuing.

If GW can throw off £16 million cash profit from a £130 million turnover they can continue for ever at that level. It is a good business.

The problem is that their sales seem to be falling, and profits fall faster than sales because of fixed costs, so pretty quickly they would be into big losses if they could not stabilize the position.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Assumptions, assumptions.

Goes both ways. :-)

Kirby is 63, he has made a ton of money from GW and, if he believes in the company, he thinks he will make a ton more from dividends and eventually selling his shares, not to mention his salary as Chairman will be considerable and he will also have collected a substantial pension fund over the past 20 years which he can cash in next year for 100% tax free cash. He may just want to kick back and enjoy his money.

But the question is - why now? Why time it - perfectly - with a poor annual report? Why not "cash out" on the upswing?

Well hopefully Goge Vandire *ahem* I mean Kirby's next position as non executive chairman will be somewhere in a cellar chained to a water heater. With any luck, art really will imitate life and our "Sebastion Thor" has simply yet to take to the stage.

This way he can tell a good story about following UK corporate government best practice.

Perhaps he expects the next interim report to be a humdinger, allowing him to step out on a high note.

Or maybe he is ill?

 paulson games wrote:
Does anyone else picture this being written on shaky hands after downing a bottle of Bourbon and all the while contemplating eating the business end of a revolver?

Paulson, as someone who was wrongly and unnecessarily involved in the beginning of the legal proceedings mentioned in the preamble, can you (within the terms of your settlement and/or NDA) confirm or deny that someone stole GW's hog? I suspect the UK legal system is better set up to deal with Grand Fish and Chips Theft than the subsequent post-colonial system we have here.

Maybe he's ready to cash-in and move to Spain. Isn't that where people from the UK retire? Kind of like the UK version of Florida isn't it?

 agnosto wrote:

 Idolator wrote:
Funny thing.

The 2013-14 annual report is up on the investor relations section of the GW website. But, no content is available right now. Did they remove the preamble? Seems odd to have a link to nothing.

They didn't bother to block the downloads folder of the website so if you direct address it, you can reach it.

The internet is hard... so many tubes! I really hope that preamble is the final correct one and not a pancake 40k edition style fake. That would be entertaining. Man... I just realized that I'm focusing way too much on the food references and must be very hungry.


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 agnosto wrote:
Maybe he's ready to cash-in and move to Spain. Isn't that where people from the UK retire? Kind of like the UK version of Florida isn't it?

Is that a Cuban joke? If that is indeed the case, someone should warn Corvus Belli to make sure he doesn't screw their pooch as well. I'd include avatars of war but their already following the Kirby model of management.

 agnosto wrote:
Maybe he's ready to cash-in and move to Spain. Isn't that where people from the UK retire? Kind of like the UK version of Florida isn't it?

It has the sun and sea plus reciprocal pension and health care arrangements. Good food and wine too!

You can get from London to Barcelona by train in about 9 hours.

There are much worse places to be.

What if Jervis will be the new CEO

 Peregrine wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
I am truly stunned at the 4 million mark for the website, how is that even possible?

I know nothing about web design and the costs involved, so someone please explain why is this bad?

Because they paid an obscene amount of money to make a website that is worse than the one the already had. Yeah, I'm sure it costs money to deal with the security and bug fixing required to run a business website with that much money going through it, but the design aspect is just embarrassingly bad. They completely removed all the content (blog posts, painting guides, etc) that might get people to visit the website regularly and be in a position to impulse buy something, and replaced it with an adequate online store that nobody will ever visit unless they are buying a product. And aesthetically it's a mess, way too much empty space, too much scrolling to see all of the information, etc. Granted, some of this is due to the "modern" tablet-friendly style that is (sadly) popular right now, but GW's version of it is just badly executed.

In short, if I didn't know how much GW paid for it I would have assumed that it was designed by someone's friend for as cheaply as possible. The fact that someone actually paid millions of dollars for this is just unbelievable.

Now now Peregrine, that's not quite fair.......plenty of people also visit the GW site to check the 360 pics of models before they go and buy them on ebay

Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.

We know quite a lot about 3-D printers, having been at the forefront of the technology for many years. We know of what we speak. One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up).

Wow, he actually just went used the internet argument logic of "No you're wrong, do your research"

Opening - immediately tells you that they've probably operated at a loss this year, with perhaps net profitability on licencing. On the whole, the entire top two sections are not fooling anyone - GW have done poorly, this is the Chairman-cum-acting CEO telling people not to sell.

The second section I can only assume is meant to say "we've reduced our overall liability and lowered overheads to sustain profit". What it comes across as is "we've had a massive restructuring, gotten rid of many experienced staff and wasted a collosal amount of money". Any investor worth their salt will see that he's essentially doing what all businesses do when they start to sink - cut costs across the board, restructure and see if the company becomes sustainable. The "allows us to sell more efficiently" garb is of no use whatsoever to any analyst unless they provide proof that they're gotten a higher than expected number of sales through their online retail. Overall, this section is utterly dreadful and blatant damage control.

The final part of the top section has him thanking his staff. Not unusual really, but fairly farcical to say they've saved millions when you've just admitted you spend £4 million on a webstore and reduced staff numbers. Again, this reads badly.


In the second part, he compares GW to the technological sector. Either he's assuming investors are just throwing money at companies showing signs of growth (unfortunately not uncommon) or that they're morons. Either way, this entire part isn't really worth discussing from a business point of view - it shows the Chairman has some vague idea of how he wants the company to function and GW have lost some IP battles. On the whole, this part wouldn't overly concern me as an investor; GW are still the market leader and have previously shown good profits, so it's not accurate to judge his management over this report.


The third part, again, wouldn't actually worry me too much. It's poorly written (much like the entire preamble frankly) but it shows they have market awareness. Agree or disagree, there's evidence of plans for the future here which is a promising sign. The blasé concerns me but other than that, it's not too bad. The ending however, is a red flag. By saying designing miniatures isn't easy, you're implying that you currently have both the best designers and that your competitors (who you've admitted have sued you for your IP) are not concerning enough to play a major part in future plans. It's very self focussed and whilst that's not bad in a report where you're about to post record profits, it's going to look extremely stupid if (and most likely, when) you post bad results for the past year.


The final part is, in my opinion, the one that Tom Kirby hangs himself with. He immediately slips up in the first line - he announces he'll be stepping down. If investors have researched the company (they will have) and know the CEO track record (they will) then he's essentially just saying "I won't be breaking the law by holding the CEO and Chairman position simultaneously after the maximum possible time". To investors this reads "we didn't look very hard for a CEO and are going to have to push anyone through the door". This is just dreadful practice and a guaranteed way to lose faith in the company - I'm expecting big sales of GW shares tomorrow.

On a side note, it's almost hilarious how he says he'll continue on as Chairman (he says if the board lets him, but that's really just tact - they will) to write the preambles, then two sentences later make a typo. He also goes on to describe how he hired an NXD without checking references, knowing her previous employment or skill set. That... I've not seen such an idiotic thing to admit to investors since I saw a company say they'd made a loss because the CEO had defrauded them. At best, people ignore it. At worst, people view you as incompetent in a report where you're posting poor performance, dismising competition and firing employees you've spent money on training. Just awful.



On the whole, things look bad. I don't think GW is done for, but if they don't drop a huge amount in stock price tomorrow and have more restructuring, I'd be astonished. One of the worst preambles I've ever read, and that's being kind.

One thing is obvious. Someone at GW has made a huge error.

I don't know if it was Kirby with his fanatical ravings, some oversight committee for not vetting his ravings before publishing, or the IT team for publishing a lunatics ravings without permission. But they have at least tried to remove the evidence.

First by removing the content from the link, but leaving the link up and the underlying upload as available.
Then by removing the link but leaving the underlying upload as available.

Someone obviously thought that this bit of info provided some very bad optics.

Who knows what's in store for later?

 Yodhrin wrote:
Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.

I don't think anyone in the thread has said that, if you actually read the posts.

I'm no business-ologist, but that preamble doesn't fill me happy thoughts.

I'll wait for the report and for people more knowledgeable about business to explain it in simple terms.

Definitely strange wording for a preamble though.

The financial report is what counts in business terms, and we won't see it for a few days -- it has to be published by the end of July.

The key point about this is that Kirby indicates right at the start that the report is going to be bad news.

rigeld2 wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

Well he's still going to be Chairman, just not CEO, assuming the board votes for him, which IIRC he was before the previous CEO (Wells?) resigned. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be both, he was "interim CEO".

In theory, but there's no guarantee the board will vote to keep him.

Regardless, what more do people want? Seriously - while I don't think the man deserves the job he currently holds, he's done nothing illegal.

Re-electing Kirby as chairman wasn't on the meeting agenda, FYI, for what that's worth.

This preamble reads like a point by point response to accusations that have been thrown at Kirby by the board and investors over the past few months. He is still the Chairman (as of now), so he is allowed to write his preamble. Seems pretty obvious to me that Kirby used this as an opportunity to tell the shareholders that they can take their complaints and stuff it. He's basically saying that although the board/shareholders are bitching about the company's finances, he will be proven right in the end.

In this context, the fact that the Chapterhouse case takes up a full third of this preamble is a huge deal. "Indecent amount of [our] money" sounds like words that have been thrown at Kirby's face more than a few times. He's not even trying to justify the expense. Seriously, imagine how someone must have reacted to finding out that in the context of these massive cost cutting measures GW spent $250,000.00 on printing copies just for the trial! God knows what the full bill is. It is probably in the 7 figures. And unlike an expensive website, there's no way to justify that expense. Kirby doesn't even try.

And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.

I'm not surprised Kirby is getting fired. GW's general counsel got the ax two months after the trial and that apparently wasn't enough to save Kirby's neck. Now that Kirby's head is on the chopping block, I expect to see the heads of the other members of GW's "Intellectual Property Protection Group" roll as well, namely Alan Roy Merrett and Andrew Jones. When the bottom guy gets fired and the top guy gets fired, the people in between aren't long for the world.

(weeble, you messed that quote up - not offended, just pointing out)

This was actually a fantastic read. Totally unprofessional, but so... human. I think Kirby passed the Turing test with this one.

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Seriously though, I will refrain from activating Smug Mode until after we see the actual numbers, but if as some in this thread have been saying this is actually the way corporations usually communicate with their investors, ie like a passive-aggressive teenager, I think I may have figured out why we had that whole "global economic collapse" thing.

I don't think anyone in the thread has said that, if you actually read the posts.

I have. Guys like Elop, and probably Kirby, are what's currently wrong with capitalism. There is no accountability anymore for the CEO's, corporate boards and other higher-ups. If your company does well, it's because of your genius and you reap huge bonuses. If it doesn't, well, you spin the facts around, there is nobody who challenges your assertations and you cash large amounts of money anyways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

weeble1000 wrote:

And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.

I thought that US doesn't have that system, court awarding the attorney fees?

Backfire wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

And here's the kicker...GW is still involved in that litigation with no hope of escape except at the sufferance of Chapterhouse Studios, who has two of the most highly regarded IP firms in the world working for free. GW is staring down the barrel of several hundred thousand dollars to argue the appeal, a possible new trial, and the potential for millions of dollars in court awarded attorney's fees.

I thought that US doesn't have that system, court awarding the attorney fees?

In civil cases it can be done.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.

The comments about internet sellers being 'parasites' and harmful to the hobby on account of not providing gaming space (which came at the same time as GW were starting to ramp up their closure of battle bunkers in favour of one-man stores in back streets) came from Mark Wells when he was in the position, rather than from Kirby. So I suspect that it's an entrenched corporate idea rather than just Kirby's personal opinion.

So given the repeated statements about hiring people based on their ability to toe the company line rather than having any actual skills or experience in the position, I would not expect the new CEO to think any differently.

rigeld2 wrote:
(weeble, you messed that quote up - not offended, just pointing out)

Yea, I know. I'm on my iPhone. The whole quote was really long, and I tried to cut it down, and obviously failed using the tiny sliver of text box visible above my keyboard. I'll fix it later tonight.

 insaniak wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
I hope the new CEO understands that the internet exists for more that direct sales.

The comments about internet sellers being 'parasites' and harmful to the hobby on account of not providing gaming space (which came at the same time as GW were starting to ramp up their closure of battle bunkers in favour of one-man stores in back streets) came from Mark Wells when he was in the position, rather than from Kirby. So I suspect that it's an entrenched corporate idea rather than just Kirby's personal opinion.

Nearly all companies, in fact, hate Internet. Even those whose business revolves around it, or takes place entirely within it. It is just too uncontrollable. Even companies like Google and Facebook are in constant conflict with the Netizens.