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Surprised no one posted this yet...

http://investor.games-workshop.com/latest_results/Results2008/default.aspx

The "Business Review", in particular, had a lot of interesting info.

I'll leave the commentary to others, just pointing out one little bit I found interesting...

"The cost of raw materials, such as metal and plastic, represents no more than 5% of our sales and therefore we do not believe that the price volatility of these inputs represents a significant threat to our long-term profitability."



Vale,

JohnS

Yeah they've been saying that a long LONG time now. I think it's the same as the last several years worth of statements, actually.

I have been reading it over with a legal beagle and an accountant, so I get the deep dish. lol

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Holy

2.8 million to install a new website?! This makes me cry.

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"No transactions of a speculative nature are permitted."

Good. So LOTR will be discontinued then?

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Hmmm. 20$ million in secured credit, that's higher than before. Still seem to be running in the red, @ 10 million.

Apparently this isn't "good".

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Forward currency contracts...I hope these are being run intelligently. Better not be hedging your translational exposures!

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"The introduction of automated inventory replenishment and computer terminals with the new web store in the UK and US Hobby centres will help us manage our working capital more effectively."

How, exactly? Things like this should be explained.

Soundbite, it seems.

=============

No dividends this year, and Kirby is writing up his appraisal in a very unorthodox way.
Its ok to be a loose and trendy CEO with a good track record, Branson comes to mind here. However coming across all loose and trendy whe you are on the slide is very different.

This report will likely worry a lot of shareholders even beyond the news that their shares are down 2.4p with no dividend to keep anyone happy.

Man, it's a depressing financial statement.

Losses everywhere. :(

Yeah, I don't get the appraisal.

It's nice when the IIS server they just upgraded can't handle the strain on it, and you get:

SERVICE UNAVAILABLE.

Fail.

Orlanth wrote:No dividends this year, and Kirby is writing up his appraisal in a very unorthodox way.
Its ok to be a loose and trendy CEO with a good track record, Branson comes to mind here. However coming across all loose and trendy whe you are on the slide is very different.

This report will likely worry a lot of shareholders even beyond the news that their shares are down 2.4p with no dividend to keep anyone happy.

If you can share your understanding, how does this report stack to last years? Reading this reminds me why I didn't major in this area...

The market seems to have been expecting more. As a result the share price is on the slide again.

Financialy speaking this year can at best be seen as treading water for GW.

George Spiggott wrote:The market seems to have been expecting more. As a result the share price is on the slide again.

Financialy speaking this year can at best be seen as treading water for GW.

Thanks for the clarification. Is it a 'Didn't meet market expectation' scenario...but they still increased profit?

Sooo... still no budget for any sort of proof reader/editor?

They lost money, AgeofEgos.

Jayden, there's barely money for anything.

No idea how they spent 1.8 million on their website...it's gotta be something beyond that. For 1.8 mil buys alot of website, and they uhh don't have alot of website...

Financials look promising so hopefully the direction planned can steer them around to a strong forward trend.

Diablobats:

Please do not spam the forum with posts directing users to non-gaming related sites.

If you continue this practice, you will be banned.

Please PM me if you feel this warning is in error.


--yakface

knightdrake wrote:Financials look promising so hopefully the direction planned can steer them around to a strong forward trend.

Which financials are you looking at? 2002?

They still look horrible.

GW is a publicly traded company for are subject to more audit review. You may run your private business with loopholes, GW would have a harder time doing so.

Stelek, in comparison to the declining trend over the past several years this is an improvement. You said you had the legel beagle and accountant with you; they should be making the same comments. Don't know what you are looking at or may just be pessimistic. From my point of view as a corporate accountant with over 10 years experience working with private and public companies. Looking over the numbers from that experience the upswing is small but does set the stage for improvement. Stopping the losses even at a flatline to previous year is an accomplishment.

Then onto their stock, this will be good new and help improve the value which is a benefit to the various shareholders. The preamble talked about this and a better focus on them then from previous years. Last year was about getting back in touch with the retailers which from these reports shows it has paid off, especially in the Americas.

Stelek wrote:No idea how they spent 1.8 million on their website...it's gotta be something beyond that. For 1.8 mil buys alot of website, and they uhh don't have alot of website...

I don't know much about all the financial mumbo jumbo, but their website redo was no small task. The kind of technology and programming that went into both the front end is very high tech by any web store's standards and I'm sure the back end is too. That kind of programming and testing and data entry takes a VERY long time to do. They basically went from scratch and built an entire web store from the ground up. It's no small task. It's not the boss's nephew who took and HTML class and can add videos to his myspace page so that makes him an expert. It was a top notch professional job from a web design standpoint.

I thought I remembered reading they were expecting to pay 5 million for their new site, so actually they're under budget if that's true

it always makes me laugh when the financial statements come out and people start rambling about what it means. Unless you are a profesional in the field qualified to make an intelligent statement about any of it, just shut yer yapper. Nothing makes a person look worse than trying to talk about something like they are an expert when they dont know their a-hole form their elbow on the subject. Just because you think you know everything, or your uncle´s buddy was an tax accountant at H&R Block doesn´t mean you know squat about corporate financial statements in the UK.

so unless you are a corporate accountant, like knightdrake appears to be, keep your useless opinion to yourself unless you prefice it by saying: i have no clue what i am talking about but here is my two cents!

The problem as they see it is the hard numbers aren't very good.

For having some of the biggest releases for their primary game systems in recent history, why should I think that +200% effort plus +10% profit is good?

It's like Ford pushing out more Trucks when gas prices triple.

Reecius wrote:Stelek, Is their a limit to your ability to make your self look bad? You persist in trying to prove you are right when you obviously are clueless on the subject.

Just let it go, no one is impresed with your tough guy on the internet routine. The tougher someone acts on the net, the more socially impotent they must be in real life.

But then, here i am feeding into it. I seriously need to learn to just ignore some of the rediulous stuff people say on the net, it is so pointless to get involved.

so rant on, nothing i or anything anyone else says will change you, in fact, you probably like the attention in some weird way.

Anyone for a hot, sweet cup of irony?

Reecius,

Stelek (or anyone else) has the right to express their opinion about what GW's financial report says. It is a public document and this is a site dedicated to discussing gaming related information.

If you (or anyone else) happens to think Stelek's opinion lacks credibility that is absolutely your right and if anyone wants to put out a different opinion they are free to as well.


Finally, if you don't like Stelek's comments, just put him on your 'ignore' list and be done with it.

Just responding to quotes:

"The cost of raw materials, such as metal and plastic, represents no more than 5% of our sales and therefore we do not believe that the price volatility of these inputs represents a significant threat to our long-term profitability."

This has been known for a long time, which is why it will be amusing when GW claims their next PP-inspired price hike due to "materials costs".


"No transactions of a speculative nature are permitted."

Heh. I wonder how they measure risk for things like Army Books and Codices and new Editions.


Overall, things aren't terrible. And that's saying something small, given that we've got major banks failing on this side of the pond.

Wait, banks are failing?

Right, one of two banks at my business got siezed and sold over the weekend.

STRESS! :(

Forgeworld generated 2.7 million pounds. Just about 2% of overall sales.
All run by a handful of guys.

That is some high yield for GW.

I think they are on the right track making expansion kits for citadel plastics i.e. the bane blade mod kits and the new chaos SM troops.

18 stores already closed in the last year and another 15 worldwide to be reviewed this year.

A store was opened up here in Queensland a couple of months ago and another is due in sydney soon IIRC. They are continuing to make stores in Japan. So looks like US, UK or Europe would be losing them.

AgeOfEgos wrote:

Orlanth wrote:No dividends this year, and Kirby is writing up his appraisal in a very unorthodox way.
Its ok to be a loose and trendy CEO with a good track record, Branson comes to mind here. However coming across all loose and trendy whe you are on the slide is very different.

This report will likely worry a lot of shareholders even beyond the news that their shares are down 2.4p with no dividend to keep anyone happy.

If you can share your understanding, how does this report stack to last years? Reading this reminds me why I didn't major in this area...

Not quite what I am saying, the report speaks for itself. My comment was on how it was written.

Ther intro is in high school speak, full of quotes everywhere and not generally from financial sources. If you were an investor you could tolerate a hopefully temporary share drop while the company is expanding, a lack of dividends while the company refocuses its investments, however both require business confidence. Business confidence requires the CEO to be either really hot, or look to be really hot in the future.

Some CEO's like to make themselves out to be modern and refreshing apparently writes some of his documents up this way, with anecdotes, of key quotes, its part of the new management style and is allegedly 'refreshing'. But it has to be done the right way, and evebn so when as modern CEO tries to make a relaxed presentation he will still get into the nuts and bolts later in the document. Kirby has used the same style throughout, which would lead me to think, what is he hiding?

Essentially the document is a cross between an end of year report and an investment brochure, the recipient has money, likely a lot of money riding on this and it is all he is given to go on for determining if his investment is worthwhile (though every good investor checks secondary sources). From reading this document would you feel relaxed to know that Kirby is in charge? Presentation is everything, this report is full of excuses for failure and half comments that dont really tell the investor anything. Most of what Stelek highlights is the same sort of 'sweeping generalities' as you find in party political manifestos, making claims and statements but not really promising anything. Sweeping generalities are a classic propoganda trick, but while that might fool average voters, but doesn't fool the average shareholder.

Rough recurring EBITDA of 14.6MM vs. 12.4MM, thats an improvement. Interest coverage went down but Debt/EBITDA improved. Not so bad. Better than I figured would be the case. Looks like they've stopped the bleeding for the moment. Now it remains to be seen how bad their sales fall off due to current conditions. If sales trends remain flat, their profitability should be reasonable next year.

No transactions of a speculative nature are permitted."

Heh. I wonder how they measure risk for things like Army Books and Codices and new Editions.

What they are saying is not speculative dervivatives trading, only direct trading to mitigate risk.
Interest rate hedging for a small company. To their banker-RESPECT. Forex hedging I can see due to their international ops.

Essentially the document is a cross between an end of year report and an investment brochure, the recipient has money, likely a lot of money riding on this and it is all he is given to go on for determining if his investment is worthwhile (though every good investor checks secondary sources). From reading this document would you feel relaxed to know that Kirby is in charge? Presentation is everything, this report is full of excuses for failure and half comments that dont really tell the investor anything. Most of what Stelek highlights is the same sort of 'sweeping generalities' as you find in party political manifestos, making claims and statements but not really promising anything. Sweeping generalities are a classic propoganda trick, but while that might fool average voters, but doesn't fool the average shareholder.

Er....All annual reports are like that.

jfrazell wrote:
Er....All annual reports are like that.

Not over here they are not. The investment base for the company is in the UK. We have had enough of this type of brochure from new Labour, it has lost its edge.

The financials look OK to me, and I have a business degree so don't jump down my throat anyone.

The shares have slid a bit because they announced no dividend this year or next. Last year they borrowed to pay a dividend -- this is a classic strategy to bolster tomorrow's share price at the expense of next year's.

Reading between the lines, now that four main investors own over 60% of the shares, the management feel they don't need to worry so much about short term share price increases and can concentrate on building the business for future profitability.

¨Anyone for a hot, sweet cup of irony?¨

hahaha, touche! I did become what i was condeming. Thanks for pointing that out, i needed that.

And sorry, Yak, you are totally correct.

¨Right, one of two banks at my business got siezed and sold over the weekend.¨

I am assuming you are reffering to IndyMac? i am pretty sure that is the 2nd biggest bank seizure in US history, bad times for the economy. I got out of the industry before I left on my trip, but that does not bode well. Things were looking bad while I was still working in banking and financing, and now it looks even worse. I am strongly considering converting all of my liquid assets into Euros as the dollar is expected to continue to drop for the next several years.

and on a related note, i have also been hearing whispers in the wind that there is a movement towars a unifed currency between Canda, the US, Mexico and a few Central American countries, similar to the Euro, but take that with more than a pinch of salt.

But on topic, I can only hope that GW pulls itself back into the black, which is the direction they appear to be going. As much as everyone here likes to be pessimistic, we all know we would be pretty upset if GW actually did tank.

Orlanth wrote:

jfrazell wrote:
Er....All annual reports are like that.

Not over here they are not. The investment base for the company is in the UK. We have had enough of this type of brochure from new Labour, it has lost its edge.

I've seen a few from over there that are PRish. Talking about how green you are and just great for the environemnt, when you're an integrated oil company for example. Its the nature of the thing.

From the mind of the completely uneducated:

I don't see how an increase in profit after steady losses over the last couple years is ever a bad sign...

I have alot of faith GW will recoup from the loss of LOTR, and will at least level out, if they don't manage to increase profits.

I just don't see this hobby as being as dynamic as other businesses.