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I think that's the difference between common stock and other stock right? But couldn't I do a hostile takeover with my Billions?

GG

IIRC, you need to own a certain percentage of shares before you are obliged to make an offer for the rest. I think this is designed to stop speculators buying up in force (thus driving the price up) then selling (taking advantage of the higher price) which I believe destabilises the Stocks value depending on the volume being traded.

Not terribly up on the whole thing, this is more snippets I picked up from the News when Kraft were going for Cadbury.

I bet you'd only need to buy 10-20% of the stock to get a real voting share. Once you start voting your people on the board you are able control some things. I bet you could get yourself elected chairman with only 30%.

Depends who owns the other 70%. If the company themselves control 51% you are a bit stuffed for installing a new chairman, as they clearly hold the reins.

Though if I'm right in thinking, 30ish% ownership is when you have to table your offer for the rest?

30% is correct. At the moment, an American businessman, Stan Kroenke, is slowly buying shares in Arsenal football club. Under the UK trading laws, he is obliged to make a formal takeover bid once he reaches 30% - he is currently at 29.9%

And as a previous poster pointed out, the closer you edge to the magical 30% barrier, the more the shares are likely to cost since shareholders considering selling will realise their percentile is worth more than face, market value.

Also, it's probably worth noting that IIRC, the board of the company facing the take over bid is well within it's rights to tell the would be buyer to knob off once they have reached the 30% margin, regardless of the offer.

70.2% of the company is held by institutions.

Shareholder statistics
Number of shares Percentage
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP 7,414,887 23.8
Investec Asset Management Limited 5,768,410 18.5
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Limited 4,746,107 15.2
Schroder Investment Management Limited 2,801,604 9.0
Polar Capital Partners 1,162,220 3.7

Information correct at 29 April 2009

If any of these institutions (outside of Polar Capital) sold a share of stock they would have to report it (since they own more the 5% of the company). Since it's pretty clear that these institutions are interested in controlling the company, I don't think they would be willing to sell you a share.

This also doesn't include the insider ownership. That means directors, CEO etc.

This company is so illiquid it would be next to impossible to accumulate a substantial amount of the company without exponentially changing the price. If someone wanted to but 5% of the company there simply wouldn't be enough sellers. This would also cause momentum players to enter the name and cause further problems for your cause.




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asugradinwa wrote:I bet you'd only need to buy 10-20% of the stock to get a real voting share. Once you start voting your people on the board you are able control some things. I bet you could get yourself elected chairman with only 30%.

With 10% you wouldn't be able to get a seat. The rest of the board could vote against it pretty easily. You'd need at least 34% to do that with a British company.

dereksatkinson wrote:70.2% of the company is held by institutions.

Shareholder statistics
Number of shares Percentage
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP 7,414,887 23.8
Investec Asset Management Limited 5,768,410 18.5
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Limited 4,746,107 15.2
Schroder Investment Management Limited 2,801,604 9.0
Polar Capital Partners 1,162,220 3.7

Information correct at 29 April 2009

If any of these institutions (outside of Polar Capital) sold a share of stock they would have to report it (since they own more the 5% of the company). Since it's pretty clear that these institutions are interested in controlling the company, I don't think they would be willing to sell you a share.

This also doesn't include the insider ownership. That means directors, CEO etc.

This company is so illiquid it would be next to impossible to accumulate a substantial amount of the company without exponentially changing the price. If someone wanted to but 5% of the company there simply wouldn't be enough sellers. This would also cause momentum players to enter the name and cause further problems for your cause.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

asugradinwa wrote:I bet you'd only need to buy 10-20% of the stock to get a real voting share. Once you start voting your people on the board you are able control some things. I bet you could get yourself elected chairman with only 30%.

With 10% you wouldn't be able to get a seat. The rest of the board could vote against it pretty easily. You'd need at least 34% to do that with a British company.

What a fascinating thread!!

Dereksatkinson, can you recomend a book that explains (preferably in detail) what your talking about?

Thanks,

GG

generalgrog wrote:Another thing that they don't do, and I believe they should do. Is advertise with TV commericals. Video game companies do it all the time why not GW?

GG


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Also they didn't make a huge profit last year. Something like 2 million?

GG

Because it would be a huge amount of money invested (millions) for little or no return? A lot more people playing xbox than warhammer.

I dunno Mikhaila. If they got the guy who did the "flea market" rap....we might see a huge leap in Games Workshop sales.

And it would be *awesome*.

mikhaila wrote:Because it would be a huge amount of money invested (millions) for little or no return? A lot more people playing xbox than warhammer.

You said "for little or no return". How can you say that? That's like saying hasbro wastes their money on ads for GI joe. or Milton Bradley wastes money on their board game ads.

Advertisements work, and it doesn't have to cost millions. It's not like they would be putting one on for the super bowl. Although, that would not be their target audience anyway.

They could throw a few on scyfy channel and or nickelodeon for fairly cheap I would wager.

GG

Actually, that's incorrect.

GI Joe and board games are far easier to get out there and there's a bigger market(what kid doesn't like playing with toys that fire missiles? what parent doesn't want to offset the missile playing with Candyland?) than Warhammer/40k.

For a fraction of the cost you could start up your own company and design your own models and rules.

Start slow (just two armies) and out source the production, and you could probably start for a few hundred thousand. Of course that is a guess, as I have not done any research on this what so ever.

Kanluwen wrote:Actually, that's incorrect.

GI Joe and board games are far easier to get out there and there's a bigger market(what kid doesn't like playing with toys that fire missiles? what parent doesn't want to offset the missile playing with Candyland?) than Warhammer/40k.

Your argument is entirely subjective.

GG

jbunny wrote:For a fraction of the cost you could start up your own company and design your own models and rules.

Start slow (just two armies) and out source the production, and you could probably start for a few hundred thousand. Of course that is a guess, as I have not done any research on this what so ever.

Well it's somewhat relative; it's a fraction of the cost of the hundred's of millions needed to buy GW yes, but would still cost you some tidy millions to start a new business from scratch (and more money still to make sure you grow & survive)

generalgrog wrote:

mikhaila wrote:Because it would be a huge amount of money invested (millions) for little or no return? A lot more people playing xbox than warhammer.

You said "for little or no return". How can you say that? That's like saying hasbro wastes their money on ads for GI joe. or Milton Bradley wastes money on their board game ads.

Advertisements work, and it doesn't have to cost millions. It's not like they would be putting one on for the super bowl. Although, that would not be their target audience anyway.

They could throw a few on scyfy channel and or nickelodeon for fairly cheap I would wager.

GG

Advertising is not cheap anywhere, except late-night local TV/cable.

There would be little return on it. I would highly doubt even 1% of the world audience is interested in Games Workshop and it's products. Most people who want to play these games already know about them, and know where to get them. Also, the GAmes WOrkshop "universe" simply lacks mass appeal. People like HAPPY, and 40K and Fantasy sure ain't happy.

Mattlov wrote:Advertising is not cheap anywhere, except late-night local TV/cable.

There would be little return on it. I would highly doubt even 1% of the world audience is interested in Games Workshop and it's products. Most people who want to play these games already know about them, and know where to get them. Also, the GAmes WOrkshop "universe" simply lacks mass appeal. People like HAPPY, and 40K and Fantasy sure ain't happy.

Uhm, take a look at any of the recent high-grossing games lately? Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect, Halo, etc. are all about war and shooting and death, just like 40k. Now, that won't correlate directly into GW's advertising returns, but to go and say that because it's not happy no one will play it is a bad generalization.

On that note though, it can be hard to pull people away from their Xbox and spend hours with tiny figures moving them around a table.

Mattlov wrote:I would highly doubt even 1% of the world audience is interested in Games Workshop and it's products.

Couldn't this be because they have never even seen the product? That's what marketing is all about, creating an interest for something.

GG

filbert wrote:

jbunny wrote:For a fraction of the cost you could start up your own company and design your own models and rules.

Start slow (just two armies) and out source the production, and you could probably start for a few hundred thousand. Of course that is a guess, as I have not done any research on this what so ever.

Well it's somewhat relative; it's a fraction of the cost of the hundred's of millions needed to buy GW yes, but would still cost you some tidy millions to start a new business from scratch (and more money still to make sure you grow & survive)

I am pretty sure that with enough research, and proper modelers (as I am not one) I could start company up for $500K - $1mil. Or 1/100th of the cost to buy GW. Keep in mind it will not be as large as GW to start with. Hince my start slow comment.

jbunny wrote:

filbert wrote:

jbunny wrote:For a fraction of the cost you could start up your own company and design your own models and rules.

Start slow (just two armies) and out source the production, and you could probably start for a few hundred thousand. Of course that is a guess, as I have not done any research on this what so ever.

Well it's somewhat relative; it's a fraction of the cost of the hundred's of millions needed to buy GW yes, but would still cost you some tidy millions to start a new business from scratch (and more money still to make sure you grow & survive)

I am pretty sure that with enough research, and proper modelers (as I am not one) I could start company up for $500K - $1mil. Or 1/100th of the cost to buy GW. Keep in mind it will not be as large as GW to start with. Hince my start slow comment.

I'm sure you could; however, that company would have such an infinitesimally small share of the market it would take you forever to start turning a profit, hence negating the point of starting the company in the first place. To grow and maintain a business to the same level as GW would probably take the same amount of money it would cost to buy GW, or at least a very large fraction of. One of the reasons there aren't many credible alternatives to GW as both a miniatures company and as a table top games company is that they have such a large share of what is a relatively small market and such a small market cannot credibly sustain many competitors; it simply isnt a person or an investment group's worthwhile to start a new company up.

Did it take GW forever to become huge? They were not the first minature company, and market share can be lost when a superior product comes on to the market.

jbunny wrote:Did it take GW forever to become huge? They were not the first minature company, and market share can be lost when a superior product comes on to the market.

I'm not going to bother posting an in depth rebuttal but I would point you to both the wikipedia pages on GW and miniatures. In terms of miniature history, it has probably taken GW some ~20 odd years to grow (and in no way could they be considered a 'huge' company in industry terms - see earlier post). As for your other point about superior products, I would argue there have been, and still are, plenty of 'superior' products that have failed to make any impact on the market. Market penetration does not rely solely on product alone.

I think I would buy Porstmouth FC and then sell out 3 days later..... before I bought GW... on a higher note Liverpool fans take heart, Senor Hicks has a deal in the works to sell Texas Rangers, so maybe some of you debt might go away.....
what was the topic about?

We can agree to disagree on this point. I will say I never once stated that the company would be as large as GW.

jbunny wrote:We can agree to disagree on this point. I will say I never once stated that the company would be as large as GW.

I concede the point, however, the topic and subject of this thread is 'So what exactly would it take to buy GW anyway?' If your alternative to not spending hundreds of millions on actually buying GW is to instead start up a company of your own then presumably in order to function as a credible alternative, it needs to be at or near a similar size?

In my professional opinion, GW is probably right not to jump into advertising in a major way. First, their product is incredibly niched, making mass media an extremely inefficient way of reaching potential customers. Second, what really sells the product is seeing the miniatures and game in action in person, not a 15- or 30-second spot with child actors grinning like the Cheshire Cat and saying "COOL!!!".

Licensing computer games and publishing fiction are two approaches that help spread awareness of the IP while making a buck. Which beats spending many bucks inefficiently. I think GW could be doing much, much better synergizing its hobby products, computer games and fiction, but that's a long rant and not OT.

gorgon wrote:Licensing computer games and publishing fiction are two approaches that help spread awareness of the IP while making a buck. Which beats spending many bucks inefficiently. I think GW could be doing much, much better synergizing its hobby products, computer games and fiction, but that's a long rant and not OT.

I think is a great point. So GW actually is kind of advertising, by putting there IP out there. So they are advertising and making money at the same. Pretty slick I think.

GG

generalgrog wrote:

Mattlov wrote:I would highly doubt even 1% of the world audience is interested in Games Workshop and it's products.

Couldn't this be because they have never even seen the product? That's what marketing is all about, creating an interest for something.

GG

...and knowing who won't ever be interested or get any use from it. It's a speciality, very niched hobby. How much hobby gear do you see advertised on TV? I'm not talking about mini wargaming, I'm talking (genuinely off the top of my head here) rock climbing, paintballing and needlepoint. Not much, right? And those hobbies are much larger than ours.

I agree with the advertising comments. If they were to advertise then I would recommend gaming mags like Dragon (which is no longer around) and other mags like that one.

They might already do this, I don't normally buy mags including White Drawf.