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If those increases were less than expected then: 1) stock not happy; 2) there can be signs that the Company has deeper problems or that those problems are more intractible than originally envisioned. I'm not saying thats this case, just a general response.

Stock is not happy because no dividend. Business-wise, it is the prudent thing to do, rather than borrowing to give money away. Borrowing is to drive future profits. And dividends are to be funded out of current profits.

Thats the theory anyway. The reality is that companies routinely will use financing to pay dividends. Its viewed as a sign of a declining company when dividends are stopped.

Oh gosh, save us. I sure as hell am not going to be voting for any idiot resolution to merge our currency with the sinking ship that is the US. You dug your own grave and trillions of debt and can have fun spending years getting out of it. NAFTA was bad enough thank you very much.

What kinda shareholders does GW have, generally speaking? I mean, the guys that buy and sell stocks like mad every day prolly aren't gonna be buying GW, I would expect the majority to be folks that are into the hobby and the company and invested in GW more as a show of support and as a long term investment than to make a quick buck. I'm prolly way wrong cuz I know nothing about stocks, but still...

I just always kinda figured most folks investing in GW are GW fans, and they'll hang onto their stock outta love more than anything else

Strimen wrote:Oh gosh, save us. I sure as hell am not going to be voting for any idiot resolution to merge our currency with the sinking ship that is the US. You dug your own grave and trillions of debt and can have fun spending years getting out of it. NAFTA was bad enough thank you very much.

Don't worry. You're in Canada. You won't have to bother with a vote. Your government knows whats best for you

Waaagh_Gonads wrote: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.

there is take a bout a 3 store in belgium ( a 2nd one in flanders to be more exactly sins the first one in flanders maide 210 % of what they expected to make ) but thats I think for next year.
flanders gw shops belong to the uk department.
and bdw its not only dollar thats going down the pounds have bin going down in value to lately.

Actually it was cabanc.com that failed.

Squat army codex & battalion would help the bottom line.

Glad to see that they've managed to do better than in previous years. I think they've been doing better, as a company, in general for the last while. Certainly I haven't felt as angry at them since they actually released my damn codex.

Necros wrote:What kinda shareholders does GW have, generally speaking? I mean, the guys that buy and sell stocks like mad every day prolly aren't gonna be buying GW, I would expect the majority to be folks that are into the hobby and the company and invested in GW more as a show of support and as a long term investment than to make a quick buck. I'm prolly way wrong cuz I know nothing about stocks, but still...

I just always kinda figured most folks investing in GW are GW fans, and they'll hang onto their stock outta love more than anything else

You know, as a GW fan, I've often (though briefly) contemplated investing in GW stock.

Then the logical part of my brain that likes money wakes up and pimp-slaps some sense back into me. I give myself a good chuckle for my momentary foolishness and then move on...

Love GW, have faith they'll turn it around, would rather trust the hobo outside Proctor and Gamble with my money.

Necros wrote:What kinda shareholders does GW have, generally speaking? I mean, the guys that buy and sell stocks like mad every day prolly aren't gonna be buying GW, I would expect the majority to be folks that are into the hobby and the company and invested in GW more as a show of support and as a long term investment than to make a quick buck. I'm prolly way wrong cuz I know nothing about stocks, but still...

I just always kinda figured most folks investing in GW are GW fans, and they'll hang onto their stock outta love more than anything else

On the website, the preamble from the CEO describes that they are primarily owned by four investing groups. His dry humor is a welcome change to the standard corporate CEO correspondence.

Strimen wrote:Oh gosh, save us. I sure as hell am not going to be voting for any idiot resolution to merge our currency with the sinking ship that is the US. You dug your own grave and trillions of debt and can have fun spending years getting out of it. NAFTA was bad enough thank you very much.

Keep in mind that the "you" you are speaking of is simply the voting majority, not necessarily the "you" you are speaking to... broad statements like that are just as misleading as this one:

jfrazell wrote:Don't worry. You're in Canada. You won't have to bother with a vote. Your government knows whats best for you

Gentlemen and ladies, let's stick to the facts and remember that wargaming is an international hobby. If we want to talk politics, go to the off topic forum!

Strimen wrote:Oh gosh, save us. I sure as hell am not going to be voting for any idiot resolution to merge our currency with the sinking ship that is the US. You dug your own grave and trillions of debt and can have fun spending years getting out of it. NAFTA was bad enough thank you very much.

Let's be real. Canada is the red button behind the glass with the sign over it that says "Break Me In Case of Emergency". We'll just subsume the great northern wastes. Who's going to save you? America?

All, right guilty as well but lets drop the Canada US thing or start a separate thread in OTT on that. Its not pertinent to the horror story that is reading English financial statements.

Perhaps they should make bitz sales a REAL option again (NOT that bitz-pack crap)

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:A store was opened up here in Queensland a couple of months ago and another is due in sydney soon IIRC.

Where's the one in Sydney going to open?

BYE

I think the real reason they took away the bitz ordering is because they didn't want to pay data entry people to re-add every little piece to the new site 1 by 1

I think it would be great though if they could at least bring back sprue ordering if not the metal stuff.

Scott_K wrote:
Perhaps they should make bitz sales a REAL option again (NOT that bitz-pack crap)

what to lose money again?

The bitz as they existed actually lost GW money- the bitz packs that are constantly being expanded actually do make profit- or at least break even.

holy crap, ANOTHER bank was seized! That is terrible, my buddies in the biz keep my up to date on what is happening, and that one flew under the radar. I checked and they are not a subsidiary of Indymac Either, they are a seperate bank associated with Arizona 1st Financial, it just keeps getting worse!

Wow, IndyMac is a giant and they were seized and are being sold piece meal right now.

And as for the merged currancy issue, it is something that will surprise me if it happens, but I wont be surprised if that makes sense. Right now Oil is traded in the US dollar, but it looks very much like it will switch to the Euro or possibly the Yuan, and if that happens it means bleak times lay ahead for the States (and Canada and Mexico too unfortunately). In order to stay competetive in the world economy it makes a lot of sense to merge our economic strength with Canada, Mexico (which is expected to transition fully into the first world in our lifetimes from what I have been hearing and reading), and a few Central American countries, many of whom already use the US dollar anyway.

It would give us the clout to keep trading Oil in our currency, and it would help all the nations involved, just as what happened with the Euro.

But anyway, sorry to derail the thread, i know a lot of this stuff is not in the slightst interesting to most people.

But here is to hoping my favorite game keeps on trucking so that we can all keep arguing about it on the net! and play the game from time to time too.

Well, I was impressed by the news today about a guy in NY that switched to an italian Piaggio Vespa (a scooter) that uses 3.5L/100. He was commenting on the fact that his car did consume, on average, 26L/100.

We're paying nearly 1.5€ per L, and our cars go from 7-14L (and that last on a very thirsty car). With average consumptions like that, no wonder...

Also, what's going on with the american economy? I've thought that the Euro was getting stronger, but the dollar seems to be falling at an alarming rate (some days I miss the news, and the next days, instead of coverage on this, it's just another Maddie-soap opera episode).

Anyway, (trying to get) back on topic, I had a small doubt: LOTR seems to be the prime reason for GW's financial state, or so everybody says.
Is it really that bad? I've got a few boxes, the models are nice and the rules seem good. What's so wrong with the game that it doesn't work? Besides, 15€ for 24 miniatures, very decent quality wise, makes me consider LOTR rather than Fantasy or 40k.

LOTR is to Fantasy as Rogue Trader is to 40K (or if you prefer, as Warmachine is to 40K).

No one wants to play with ten men 'armies' when they can play with more--wanna play small, play combat patrol I guess.

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.

Meh, not really. I see nothing on that site that isn't a very widely available skillset. I mean, all that's immediately visible is Javascript, JSP pages, and the presumption that there's some sort of Java backend doing commerce tasks. JSP is still viable, I guess, but it's a 2001 era technology, there are tons and tons of people who can do it.

A major question is how much they invested in hardware, software licensing, etc. Java Server Pages sites don't have a ton of licensing cost to them AFAIK.

Strictly in terms of man hours, if you assume a $100/hour bill rate, $1.8m is 18,000 hours, or a 10 person team working 40 hours a week for 45 weeks.

That's a high bill rate for an entire team, and that's a lot of hours for what they got, which is some javascript menus, maybe some sort of content management system, and a shopping cart. A quick inspection shows that its HTML is laden with comment blocks, which really shouldn't be present in a production site.

All in all, it's probably a typical software project, they probably paid a lot more than they should have to get a competent team to build it. But to have anything at all is a success, given how many times I've seen companies spend $250k, $500k, $11 million, for absolutely nothing.

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.

Kirby is the chairman, he was replaced as CEO by Mark Wells.

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.

As knightdrake pointed out, GW has reversed their previously declining total sales.

It’s a common error people make to look straight at the profit figure and assume that is the be all and end all of reporting. It isn’t, in fact it isn’t relevant at all. What you’re interested in future cash flows, and in this regards GW’s performance has improved over previous years. Still not great, but not as poor as the previous couple of years.

And the movement in share price post announcement doesn’t reflect performance. It reflects the announcement relative to the expectations of the announcement. You have to look at the share price over a longer period to get a decent reflection of actual performance. Even then, when looking at a shallowly held stock like GW it isn't a very good guide.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Stock is not happy because no dividend. Business-wise, it is the prudent thing to do, rather than borrowing to give money away. Borrowing is to drive future profits. And dividends are to be funded out of current profits.

The market doesn’t demand a dividend. Quite the opposite in fact, proven by the movement of share post dividend being less than the dividend paid. All things being equal people prefer the extra dollar still in the company, being used to fund expansion and increase the stock price.

Companies pay dividends to allocated tax credits accrued on the dividend to share holders (but I believe the UK got rid of that in like, ’97 or thereabouts).

AlexCage wrote: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.

LOTR has been a strong performer for GW. I know it isn't popular on the internet, and I don't like the game either, but we are not the world.

We know that 40k SM alone easily outsells WFB, and consistently generates considerably more profit. And my understanding is that LotR is another money-maker for GW.

But sometimes, I have to wonder if LotR outsells WFB, and whether it would more profitable for GW to simply cancel WFB in favor of increased LotR investment and net profits...

JohnHwangDD wrote:We know that 40k SM alone easily outsells WFB, and consistently generates considerably more profit. And my understanding is that LotR is another money-maker for GW.

But sometimes, I have to wonder if LotR outsells WFB, and whether it would more profitable for GW to simply cancel WFB in favor of increased LotR investment and net profits...

Given the major cost to GW is in their retail network, not in their product ranges, I’d say it’s unlikely that any of their lines will be cut. Cutting LotR won’t make those mainstreet stores any cheaper.

sebster wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Stock is not happy because no dividend. Business-wise, it is the prudent thing to do, rather than borrowing to give money away. Borrowing is to drive future profits. And dividends are to be funded out of current profits.

The market doesn’t demand a dividend. Quite the opposite in fact, proven by the movement of share post dividend being less than the dividend paid. All things being equal people prefer the extra dollar still in the company, being used to fund expansion and increase the stock price.

Thats an incorrect statement. The use of dividends attracts a different investor base. Lose the dividend and you lose that investor base.

I'll be the first to tell you I know nothing of business matters like this....I put my money in my 401k like they tell me to and trust someone else to take care of it.

I've sort of scanned through this thread and have seen arguments that sounded good to me, though it was all over my head. Is it possible though that, since I imagine a large amount of their sales are to the U.S., financial troubles at GW are an expected result of how we're having some rough financial times? I mean, when we're worried about things like fuel and food, miniatures are going to go on the back burner. I know that I havent bought anything other than the 40k 5th ed rulebook and some washes this entire year.

Do you not think that this sort of thing will resolve itself when the U.S. economy improves? Am I correct that GW sells a lot of product here, or is that just my impression?