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The aforementioned financials -

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2013-14-Press-statement-final-released.pdf

The last thread was unfortunately 'lost' while being moderated for some heated behaviour towards the end of it. This is a reboot, please conduct your conversations in a civil manner and avoid personal attacks at all costs.

Thanks, chat away!

PS - Kindly provided by my brother in arms KC -

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Quick summary

Earnings dropped 12%, profits dropped 38% compared to the same period in 2012.

The company was still in profit.

No dividend was declared.

Share price dropped 25%.

Many users took these figures to represent GW nudging over the edge of the abyss, which will lead inevitably to their fall in the near future.

Kirby said the problem was one man shops. (Which were Good News! when they were introduced by GW.)

It should be noted that the period does not include December, so their full year results may show a good upswing from that. OTOH the comparison period in 2012 also did not include December, so there may be no upswing.

My argument is that PS4 and XBone sold over $2 billion worth of units in November-December 2013, compared to $0 in Nov-Dec 2012. I contend that some of this cash must have come from the pockets and savings of people who would otherwise have spent on tabletop wargames. Even if the cash was spent in December, it was saved during the previous months because not many people can pull $500 out of their pocket at a moment's prompting.

Note that GW's annual turnover is only about $200 million. If one percent of the money spent on new consoles was diverted from spending on GW, that in itself would explain a lot of the results.

However many people still believe there are underlying problems at GW. I am one of them.

I forgot what happened...

I was reading page 38 or so when it vanished, hadn't reached the heated part yet

Why delete an entire thread for a couple of people breaking forum rules? youve lost hundreds and hundreds of posts of valid discussion there well done, surely just removing the offending posts would have been a better option?

Do we have an accountants or investor types kicking around dakka that can give the laymen a run down of what the report is really saying?
Sure we can all read it, but most of us arent going to know the specifics of reading a financial report for a company.
Numbers are almost always misleading when written corporate types

HairySticks wrote:
Why delete an entire thread for a couple of people breaking forum rules?

Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.

And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...

 insaniak wrote:

Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.

Yes.. there is always that. hehe clearly if 40k were real... I'd have Inquisitors enroute to route out my heretical thinking

Edit; prefer a splash of bourbon to the scotch myself ... might have to restock i seem to have ran out over a week ago hehehe

 insaniak wrote:

HairySticks wrote:
Why delete an entire thread for a couple of people breaking forum rules?

Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.

And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...

So the lesson in all of this is Scotch and Monocles good, Scotch and Buttons bad?

Pretty sure after 40+ pages of nonsense I'd much rather hear theory's about a mod being drunk on power (Scotch) secretly being a GW plant and "censoring" the thread

 ironicsilence wrote:
Pretty sure after 40+ pages of nonsense I'd much rather hear theory's about a mod being drunk on power (Scotch) secretly being a GW plant and "censoring" the thread

You heard it here first, MajorTom11 is actually Tom Kirby! How did we not make the connection before!?


Adding in an Orkmoticon to make it clear I'm being facetious. Here it is!

 RatBot wrote:

 ironicsilence wrote:
Pretty sure after 40+ pages of nonsense I'd much rather hear theory's about a mod being drunk on power (Scotch) secretly being a GW plant and "censoring" the thread

You heard it here first, MajorTom11 is actually Tom Kirby! How did we not make the connection before!?

I'm not saying...im just saying....
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. - Churchhill

HairySticks wrote:
Why delete an entire thread for a couple of people breaking forum rules? youve lost hundreds and hundreds of posts of valid discussion there well done, surely just removing the offending posts would have been a better option?

Because Hollywood is obsessed with reboots and has no respect for the source material?

I'll take the heat on this one boys and fess up lol, I was dealing with some... stuff... in the last thread and I accidentally hit the big red 'do not push' button... the thread was not deleted on purpose and unfortunately there are no 'backsies' on that particular boo-boo.

If some of you in the North East heard an echoing slap about an hour ago that was me facepalming lol.

Anyhoo sorry for the inconvenience to those that were reading and or participating, but regardless of my mistake it was getting a bit off the rails so this reboot isn't the worst thing in the world either.

I demand a graphic novel to finish up the loose plot threads from the last one. Then I'll accept your reboot.

How disappointing.
It's a detailed and serious business topic, not a disposable kiddy-fest about rules balancing.

So the new thread will be pointless until some of those members experienced with corporate management and market forces can make significant comments again.

Meanwhile, THIS 45yo mini sculptor has two dragons, a draco-lich, a basilisk, a chaos warrior, and a Baba Yaga's Hut left to sculpt. So I'll just return in a week to see if any valuable insight was brought in.

 Live2sculpt wrote:
So the new thread will be pointless until some of those members experienced with corporate management and market forces can make significant comments again.

Or until some of the usual suspects (-1 of their number ) show up to preach the virtures of my signature.

 Live2sculpt wrote:
How disappointing.
It's a detailed and serious business topic, not a disposable kiddy-fest about rules balancing.

So the new thread will be pointless until some of those members experienced with corporate management and market forces can make significant comments again.

Meanwhile, THIS 45yo mini sculptor has two dragons, a draco-lich, a basilisk, a chaos warrior, and a Baba Yaga's Hut left to sculpt. So I'll just return in a week to see if any valuable insight was brought in.

Any chance you have a blog or website where I can see more of your work or work in progress shots?

As for GW's financials:

Their stock price is coming to be more in line with their actual earnings but probably has much further to go as their PE ratio is still way out of line for their sector, size and the exchange they are one.

Their earnings, profits and sales volume are all continuing to decline, but in a slightly faster rate in the last 6 months.

They're going to continue to open and close one employee stores until they get enough of them with a profitable combination of location and employee that they can start being stable again and maybe even return to paying divdends. This won't really address the larger issues with their actual product, but GW doesn't believe there are any issues with their actual product.

They will continue to shrink each year, but be able to keep costs down and mostly stay profitable. They'll slowly cede more and more of their market share to their competitors and become less and less relevant over time.

Nothing exciting or flashy. Just a company that's watching their margins like a hawk carrying on with the exact same thing that they've been doing for quite some time.

EDIT: And yes, this on-topic part was largely to justify me asking you about your work

 Live2sculpt wrote:
How disappointing.
It's a detailed and serious business topic, not a disposable kiddy-fest about rules balancing.

So the new thread will be pointless until some of those members experienced with corporate management and market forces can make significant comments again.

Meanwhile, THIS 45yo mini sculptor has two dragons, a draco-lich, a basilisk, a chaos warrior, and a Baba Yaga's Hut left to sculpt. So I'll just return in a week to see if any valuable insight was brought in.

Accidents happen. Give me your address and I'll send you my pinky if it makes you feel any less dramatic

 insaniak wrote:

HairySticks wrote:
Why delete an entire thread for a couple of people breaking forum rules?

Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.

And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...

Or fat fingers

Luv ya Tom!

So far as accidentally deleting the thread, it happens. I can only imagine how hard today was on MajorTom - knowing Canada's bravest son, so proud and true, was rotting in a foreign hellhole for a crime he almost certainly maybe didn't commit.

If only there were a giant, monolithic corporation, answerable to no one, who hoovered up all of our data for purposes it claims to be benign but in truth, no one really knows?

Luckily, there is such a corporation, and when it's not remotely activating your webcam to look at you in your underwear, it's doing that above hoovering thing.




If you wish to go back further, go to a cached page, and in the address bar, decrease the post number by 30, as shown. It's not all in cache - right around page 36 it starts going off the rails - but everything older should more or less be there.

I smell a conspiracy! I demand an Inquisitorial investigation! The heretics will be revealed!

Mods have bungled this pretty well.

Could somebody please provide a proper interpretation of GW's financial report?

 MajorTom11 wrote:

Accidents happen. Give me your address and I'll send you my pinky if it makes you feel any less dramatic

Sorry. Thread moderating is a thankless chore.

 MajorTom11 wrote:

 Live2sculpt wrote:
How disappointing.
It's a detailed and serious business topic, not a disposable kiddy-fest about rules balancing.

So the new thread will be pointless until some of those members experienced with corporate management and market forces can make significant comments again.

Meanwhile, THIS 45yo mini sculptor has two dragons, a draco-lich, a basilisk, a chaos warrior, and a Baba Yaga's Hut left to sculpt. So I'll just return in a week to see if any valuable insight was brought in.

Accidents happen. Give me your address and I'll send you my pinky if it makes you feel any less dramatic

I'm afraid your pinky just won't do it for me. No. You'll need to send me a Riptide, NIB.

Anyway, when I left the old thread, we were trying to determine whether or not the Warhammer 40,000 property was more valuable without the Games Workshop attached. I'm not sleeping until I have a definitive answer.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I apparently have the whole thing up to page 36 in my other tab.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Could somebody please provide a proper interpretation of GW's financial report?

Quick summary

Earnings dropped 12%, profits dropped 38% compared to the same period in 2012.

The company was still in profit.

No dividend was declared.

Share price dropped 25%.

Many users took these figures to represent GW nudging over the edge of the abyss, which will lead inevitably to their fall in the near future.

Kirby said the problem was one man shops. (Which were Good News! when they were introduced by GW.)

It should be noted that the period does not include December, so their full year results may show a good upswing from that. OTOH the comparison period in 2012 also did not include December, so there may be no upswing.

My argument is that PS4 and XBone sold over $2 billion worth of units in November-December 2013, compared to $0 in Nov-Dec 2012. I contend that some of this cash must have come from the pockets and savings of people who would otherwise have spent on tabletop wargames. Even if the cash was spent in December, it was saved during the previous months because not many people can pull $500 out of their pocket at a moment's prompting.

Note that GW's annual turnover is only about $200 million. If one percent of the money spent on new consoles was diverted from spending on GW, that in itself would explain a lot of the results.

However many people still believe there are underlying problems at GW. I am one of them.

HairySticks wrote:
Do we have an accountants or investor types kicking around dakka that can give the laymen a run down of what the report is really saying?
Sure we can all read it, but most of us arent going to know the specifics of reading a financial report for a company.
Numbers are almost always misleading when written corporate types

As this is what I do for a living, I'll give it a bash. I will say, this is my theories based on figures as they exist. Theories are opinions and not facts which is what makes my job hard to do. Someone else might read the same figures and read something different. Plus, I'm not very good at my job

Revenue fell by £7m (ignore revnue adjusted for currency and interest as these can be manipulated by internal estimates that I do not have access to). Obviously not a good thing as revenue going down is revenue going down. Even worse, a relaunch for WH40k in that period should have seen an increase in revenue not a decrease. Also, revenue decreased accross all geographical regions showing that this is not an isolated economic situation.

Gross margin held steady at 70%. Basically, for every 30p of raw materials GW buys they take £1 worth of revenue. This really points to the fact that they could quite easily charge less for their goods. However, it debunks the theory that price hikes are purely revenue decisions. Price hikes are protecting GW's margins, they are merely passing on their own purchase price increases.

Operating expenses (the cost of the stores is the main cost to this I assume) holds steady at £37m. Kind of goes against what is being said that they have cut cost basis with one man stores. Or we will see a reduction in the second half of 2014 financial year.

Royalties increased rapidly suggesting that all these independant apps and novels (assuming Black library is outside main group) are making much higher sales and can be forecasted to increase as they gain traction in their respective fields.

Profit before tax has reduced by £3m. Lower revenue, lower profits and this leads to the lower Earnings per share.

Intangible assets have increased by £2m. I find this interesting because intangible assets are often ways of hiding costs on balance sheet as it is purely on the directors opinion that an intangible can be capitalised. Without detailed reports its impossible to know what has been capitalised or not. My assumption is the spead of producing codexes has led to an increase and an increase in intellectual property which has been capitalised to be written off over its "useful economic life". I would flag this as a red herring in my job. If not capitalised profits would reduce by £5m.

Debtors reduced by £2m showing a decline in sales to companies. Deterrant business practices would be the main reason for this.

Here is the big reason I would flag this company as a concern. Cash has reduced by £7m. A reduction in cash is the first sign a business is failing. You can sugar coat costs by moving things about but you cannot miss the fact that cash in the business is down. However, trade creditors are down by £7m. Perhaps they have paid a larger amount of creditors quicker than last year? It might explain downturn in cash but not excuse it.

Current is above 1. This is a companies ability to pay its current liabilities with is current assets. Anything above 1 is good. Also the acid test ratio (ability to satisfy current liabilites with cash) is 0.7. Anything above 0.5 is good. This is not a company that is about to disappear down a black-hole or be bought by anyone else. Sorry to those hoping for that.

The second six months will be interesting.

Cheers for the breakdown, very interesting read.

Stock started this week at 548.5, finished at 533, down almost 3%, for a total of 26% loss from its peak on Jan 15.

I think Sliver_Skates assessment is spot on. GW is currently not in a negative position where they have become unprofitable. The next report will be telling as to if a downward trend is going to continue. Unless a company has a catastrophic even (typically Legal related) they rarely go from being profitable to doors shut in a short time frame.

With that being said, there is a chance that the Chapter House lawsuit could open the doors for 3rd parties to produce alternate models and rules at reduced cost. Someone could easily write a set of rules which are compatible with 40K for the Chaos Legions and fix all the issues. All it takes is someone to be smart about it and the tournament scene to use them as official rules and it becomes mainstream. Then GW starts having real problems because there is a viable alternate product.

Stock started at about 730, not 550. It ended at about 550-530.
http://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChart.asp?ShareChart=GAW