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Just wondering how much is gw worth in sterling and indeed what would happen if i owned upto 49 percent of its shares-would things change in relation to prices? Also anyone know how many shares gw has available and there current price?

I wouldn't invest any money in GW shares now.

The last time I bothered to look (perhaps 2010) the company was worth 150 million Pounds. Very old info there though.

I agree that unless you intend to buy controlling stock in the company in order to force policy changes, GW is a bad investment currently.

There are other companies that are far safer and more lucrative investments.

234mm Pounds market cap as at now per Bloomberg.

jonny5 wrote:
Also anyone know how many shares gw has available and there current price?

March 1, 2013
As at the date of this announcement the Company had 31,730,532 issued ordinary shares.

Share price chart:

http://investor.games-workshop.com/longaw-share-price/

As it's listed in the UK if you acquired 30% of the shares in GW you would be forced to make a takeover bid for the whole company

(and you must be prepared to pay at least as much as you paid for the cheapest share you acquired in the 3 months previous)

so you could safely get 29.9% (if folk were prepared to sell to you), but if you hit 30% you'd need to be prepared to buy the lot

My Uncle's got shares in GW (among other companies) and apparently it's one of the most profitable ones he's got. I guess it's down to the fact that GW never runs out of people wanting to buy their stuff, and very few people ever switch to buying similar products from another company.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
As it's listed in the UK if you acquired 30% of the shares in GW you would be forced to make a takeover bid for the whole company

(and you must be prepared to pay at least as much as you paid for the cheapest share you acquired in the 3 months previous)

so you could safely get 29.9% (if folk were prepared to sell to you), but if you hit 30% you'd need to be prepared to buy the lot

I'd like to start a kickstarter. Anyone wanna help me own GW? I'll fix it.

 The Shadow wrote:
My Uncle's got shares in GW (among other companies) and apparently it's one of the most profitable ones he's got. I guess it's down to the fact that GW never runs out of people wanting to buy their stuff, and very few people ever switch to buying similar products from another company.

Share price does not always equate to company health. GW has seen stagnant sales volumes, and their only major way of showing any profit is to reduce costs by closing stores, facilities etc. They aren't really growing, so much as burning the fat. The problem there is that what happens when the company is as slim as it can be? What happens where there are no more costs that can be cut?

Cost reduction is a short term gain.

I'd happily join a Kickstarter for some new LLC to come in and buy out controlling share, but I don't think the current owners are inclined to sell enough to lose control.

Aerethan wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
My Uncle's got shares in GW (among other companies) and apparently it's one of the most profitable ones he's got. I guess it's down to the fact that GW never runs out of people wanting to buy their stuff, and very few people ever switch to buying similar products from another company.

Share price does not always equate to company health. GW has seen stagnant sales volumes, and their only major way of showing any profit is to reduce costs by closing stores, facilities etc. They aren't really growing, so much as burning the fat. The problem there is that what happens when the company is as slim as it can be? What happens where there are no more costs that can be cut?

Oh no, I'd agree, I was just commenting on the worth of shares, since someone mentioned it. GW is, if anything, declining, which I do actually find sad.

DeffDred wrote:
I'd like to start a kickstarter. Anyone wanna help me own GW? I'll fix it.

Count me in!

 DeffDred wrote:


I'd like to start a kickstarter. Anyone wanna help me own GW? I'll fix it.

Mate that's absolutely made my day.

 The Shadow wrote:

Oh no, I'd agree, I was just commenting on the worth of shares, since someone mentioned it. GW is, if anything, declining, which I do actually find sad

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-group-accounts-3-June-2012.pdf
Profit is up by nearly a third last year, and dividends rose by nearly 50%. And yet you honestly sit there and tell people that GW is failing and not to invest?

Dude, when it comes to financial data, Dakka is where facts go to die.

 BryllCream wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Oh no, I'd agree, I was just commenting on the worth of shares, since someone mentioned it. GW is, if anything, declining, which I do actually find sad

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-group-accounts-3-June-2012.pdf
Profit is up by nearly a third last year, and dividends rose by nearly 50%. And yet you honestly sit there and tell people that GW is failing and not to invest?

 BryllCream wrote:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-group-accounts-3-June-2012.pdf
Profit is up by nearly a third last year, and dividends rose by nearly 50%. And yet you honestly sit there and tell people that GW is failing and not to invest?

That's for one year, a year in which GW increased their profits by cutting expenses and increasing prices while sales volume remained stagnant (or even declined). Maybe it's a good buy if you're only planning to hold the shares for a short time in the hope that the next financial report will give you a profit when you sell your shares, but GW's ability to make a profit in the immediate future has never been in doubt. What people are skeptical of is GW's long-term future, where the ability to increase profits by cost cutting and price increases goes away. And in the context of making an investment you hope to pay off in the long run GW looks like a pretty big risk.

(Unless of course you're buying shares in the hope of making a profit when the company gets bought by someone with more business sense, but in that case maybe you want to wait until share prices drop a bit before the end.)

 Peregrine wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-group-accounts-3-June-2012.pdf
Profit is up by nearly a third last year, and dividends rose by nearly 50%. And yet you honestly sit there and tell people that GW is failing and not to invest?

That's for one year, a year in which GW increased their profits by cutting expenses and increasing prices while sales volume remained stagnant (or even declined). Maybe it's a good buy if you're only planning to hold the shares for a short time in the hope that the next financial report will give you a profit when you sell your shares, but GW's ability to make a profit in the immediate future has never been in doubt. What people are skeptical of is GW's long-term future, where the ability to increase profits by cost cutting and price increases goes away. And in the context of making an investment you hope to pay off in the long run GW looks like a pretty big risk.

(Unless of course you're buying shares in the hope of making a profit when the company gets bought by someone with more business sense, but in that case maybe you want to wait until share prices drop a bit before the end.)

Well said Peregrine.

Showing profit and paying dividends is not indicative of growth or success, as both can be "forced" with short term methods like cost cutting and taking out loans for dividends(which GW very much does).

If GW showed actual growth in sales volume, then profit would naturally follow that. Instead, they cut costs to offset the plateau in sales.

Now what would be great is if one of the people from Shark Tank decided to buy up enough of GW to take over and fix things, since those people all have a rather good grasp on how to fix companies and market them properly(or in GW's case, at all).

 The Shadow wrote:
My Uncle's got shares in GW (among other companies) and apparently it's one of the most profitable ones he's got. I guess it's down to the fact that GW never runs out of people wanting to buy their stuff, and very few people ever switch to buying similar products from another company.

It depends when you bought it...

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GAW.L#symbol=gaw.l;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

If you bought in 2003 to 2005, you'd only be just breaking even now. If you bought 2006-2012, you'd be doing quite well for yourself. If you bought right now, who knows where you'd be in a few years. Personally I think GW's stagnant sales are going to bite them in the arse sooner or later and things will start going south.

Revenue vs. Profits vs. Dividends is right, but I got a moment to look at revenues (in GBP).

2012: 131m
2011: 123m
2010: 127m
2009: 125m
2008: 110m
2007: 110m
2006: 114m

My guess for 2013? 135m to 140m, based on their half-year report. So, CAGR of like 2% or so?

---

Would I buy a stock as an investor? No way. Would I buy it as a fan? Maybe yes.

Then I'd go to their Annual General Meeting, eat their food, ask their executives some hard questions.

'Course, I'm In China so I'm not going to make that effort, I haven't been back to the UK in 10 years.

---

But when I was looking at their numbers and I want to ask this important question:

What's the average price increase per year? I remember it was around 5%? Is that right?

More. The next one will be about 10-20%.

 Sigvatr wrote:
More. The next one will be about 10-20%.

Source?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-group-accounts-3-June-2012.pdf
Profit is up by nearly a third last year, and dividends rose by nearly 50%. And yet you honestly sit there and tell people that GW is failing and not to invest?

That's for one year, a year in which GW increased their profits by cutting expenses and increasing prices while sales volume remained stagnant (or even declined). Maybe it's a good buy if you're only planning to hold the shares for a short time in the hope that the next financial report will give you a profit when you sell your shares, but GW's ability to make a profit in the immediate future has never been in doubt. What people are skeptical of is GW's long-term future, where the ability to increase profits by cost cutting and price increases goes away. And in the context of making an investment you hope to pay off in the long run GW looks like a pretty big risk.

(Unless of course you're buying shares in the hope of making a profit when the company gets bought by someone with more business sense, but in that case maybe you want to wait until share prices drop a bit before the end.)

Sales and operating profits have been rising every year since 2007, except 2011 where there was a slight dip. I'd be surprised if they didn't continue to rise, given that there is clearly very strong demand for GW products.

But considering that the sales are stagnant at best (revenue increase doesn't exceed price increases), that they've done about as much cost cutting as they can get away with, and they have a lot of competition outstripping them by a huge margin in terms of growth and value, where are these rising profits going to come from?

Maybe they'll drop something on us that'll turn it all around, like a revolutionary core game, but I can't see it happening at the moment.

Sales are up though. Unless gw lied in the financial report?

 BryllCream wrote:
Sales are up though. Unless gw lied in the financial report?

Revenue and profits are up, not sales. What did the financial report actually say?

If sales were up, their revenues would have increased much more than 6.5%.

Sales= total number of transactions or number of actual product sold.

Revenue=total gross income of all sales

Profit= Revenue minus overhead.

So GW cut costs(meaning overhead) so that the profit per sale is higher. Then GW did a price hike, so that the revenue AND profit per transaction is higher.

When you compound both of those and only see the amount of growth they've had in recent years, it indicates that GW has had fewer or the same sales. Cutting costs and raising prices are not growth, and growth is what matters.

During a global recession, while headquartered in a particularly hard-hit economy. I get the hate, but really, this is a 100MM company that sells little green men. They are doing something right.

Herzlos wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Sales are up though. Unless gw lied in the financial report?

Revenue and profits are up, not sales. What did the financial report actually say?

If sales were up, their revenues would have increased much more than 6.5%.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
More. The next one will be about 10-20%.

Source?

Latest price changes for already released models e.g. Warriors of Chaos. Individual character models went up by ~25%, chariot went up from 26€ to 35€ aka ~25% increase, core infantry went up from 2,50€ per model to 4€ per model aka an increase of ~40%, not to mention the new standard price for monstrous units of 45+€.

Jack_Death wrote:
During a global recession, while headquartered in a particularly hard-hit economy. I get the hate, but really, this is a 100MM company that sells little green men. They are doing something right.

Yet in the same period a whole host of competitors have shown significant growth, or have come into existence and shown significant growth. They haven't shown any growth and have instigated a serious fat cutting operation which IMHO has really hurt their future growth potential* in order to appear stable.

Yes they have done some things right (or just been incredibly fortunate), but almost everyone they compete with is doing vastly better.

*1-man stores, shedding creative staff, dropping hobby store activities, games shows, promotions, advertising, free content, package reductions and price hikes.

Herzlos wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
Sales are up though. Unless gw lied in the financial report?

Revenue and profits are up, not sales. What did the financial report actually say?

If sales were up, their revenues would have increased much more than 6.5%.

oh yeah, I meant revenue. It's still valid though, revenue is up, profits are up...only on dakka does that mean it's doomed

Sorry, but without data your reply is just more band-wagoneering. As the supply of pile-on posts here is infinite, the value is more-or-less zero.

Who are the "host of competitors" that are eating GW's lunch? Are any of them multi-national public companies with verifiable revenues?

Herzlos wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
During a global recession, while headquartered in a particularly hard-hit economy. I get the hate, but really, this is a 100MM company that sells little green men. They are doing something right.

Yet in the same period a whole host of competitors have shown significant growth, or have come into existence and shown significant growth. They haven't shown any growth and have instigated a serious fat cutting operation which IMHO has really hurt their future growth potential* in order to appear stable.

Yes they have done some things right (or just been incredibly fortunate), but almost everyone they compete with is doing vastly better.

*1-man stores, shedding creative staff, dropping hobby store activities, games shows, promotions, advertising, free content, package reductions and price hikes.

Because neither of those numbers equate to growth, and GROWTH is the long term goal of any good company.

Revenue is up from price hikes, what happens when people stop buying because it gets TOO high?

Profit is up from said price hikes, as well as cost cutting(probably more so), but what happens when you cannot cut any more costs?

Those are long term questions to short term methods.

I wouldn't say GW are doomed, but their current path is not sustainable indefinitely.

If prices went up by 5% and revenue went up by 6.5%, does that not mean that sales increased by 1.5%?