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Hi,
the first thread on GW's half-annual report got deleted by accident, the second one was closed due to off-topic talk.
But as these are busy and exciting times to watch the share market for GW shares, here a restart.
Here a graph of the recent development:


Here a link to see the share price development of a given day:
http://www.lse.co.uk/SharePrice.asp?shareprice=GAW

Today is another very busy day:
Up to now 121,143 shares sold (worth more than £ 600k or almost a million US$), then 2x25k shares bought for £131.25k each .
The big shuffling of shares continues.

I would appreciate a thread like this with a tight focus on GWs stock sticking around with regular updates. It would save me having to root around on yahoo finance every other day.

Clearly there's atypical action with the trading of GW shares.

You could frame it as a return to more typical activity. Avg vol has been in the 120k range, but has barely broken 10k some days since the cliff edge.

Would be lovely if the trades weren't anonymous!

I suspect a fair amount of the large drop is simply reduction in stockholding or jumping ship due to the dividends not being paid out.

Response to the lower profit and revenue figures would I think manifest as a more steady decline as we've seen since the major drop. I reckon that'll continue.

Is there a list of owners of the biggest amounts?
Is GW buying it back, or are the portfolio groups moving around?

[Edit]
Like this http://investor.games-workshop.com/shareholder-statistics/

Their Sales Director just bought 25k shares:

http://www.lse.co.uk/AllNews.asp?code=e6nr63o7&headline=DIRECTOR_DEALINGS_Games_Workshop_Head_Of_Sales_Acquires_Shares

Shows he's pretty confident about the long term I guess.

Share price is stable for now:

https://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=LON:GAW

 Osbad wrote:
Their Sales Director just bought 25k shares:

http://www.lse.co.uk/AllNews.asp?code=e6nr63o7&headline=DIRECTOR_DEALINGS_Games_Workshop_Head_Of_Sales_Acquires_Shares

Shows he's pretty confident about the long term I guess.

Share price is stable for now:

https://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=LON:GAW

I don't think he needs to declare as a director's deal, and if I were in charge of GW sales I certainly wouldn't be betting on it given the progressive drops in revenue over the past few years.

Smells fishy to me, but I'm not a market analyst.

Tin foil hat time.

Gw forcing its staff to buy shares to try and drive the value of high lord Kirby's retirement plan up?

*Removes Tim foil hat, now has tinfoil hat hair*

I've been wondering this for a while, how many shares are there and what is the price of each?

If you add them all up together does that mean you get how much GW is worth? If someone were to buy every single share would that mean they would own the company and could do whatever they wanted with it?

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
I've been wondering this for a while, how many shares are there and what is the price of each?

If you add them all up together does that mean you get how much GW is worth? If someone were to buy every single share would that mean they would own the company and could do whatever they wanted with it?

Exactly right.

Just over 31m shares in circulation, giving a valuation of ~£160m. You'd need a lot more than that to buy them outright, as you'd drive the price up as you were purchasing them, and eventually (27% rings a bell?) have to make an offer to buy the whole shebang, and would have to offer over market value if you wanted people to actually sell you their stock.

You could probably pick up enough to make a big noise at the AGM and be listened to for around £20m I reckon. Or just hold tight and see what happens of the next set of financials are as nasty a shock to the market as these apparently were.

So the whole of GW is worth no more than £160 million?
Wow, I would have expected it to be like 1 or 2 billion due to the IP.

So shares in GW are about $8.56 per share.

Maybe I might start buying shares in GW. Hell, I should have been doing that when I worked there, but sometimes I tend not to think "long-term".

I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.

Only £81 million? Kickstarter incoming!

 Spazz wrote:
I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.

Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.

 azreal13 wrote:

 Spazz wrote:
I'm pretty sure that you would only have to own 51% of the total stock to gain control of the company.

Correct, but there is a regulation that obliges you to try and buy the whole company once your stake reaches a certain percentage, you're not compelled to be successful, and if you gain 51% or more you will essentially control the organisation, but you must make the effort.

That sounds like a silly regulation. "Oops, I tried and failed."

Nah, there has to be a documented and public attempt. I'm not sure how easy it is to 'try' rather than really try, but it isn't something you can just breeze past.

skarsol wrote:
Only £81 million? Kickstarter incoming!

Kickstarter: Buy GW and fix things.

It'd probably hit that mark. Major backers get to be executive management?

WayneTheGame wrote:

skarsol wrote:
Only £81 million? Kickstarter incoming!

Kickstarter: Buy GW and fix things.

It'd probably hit that mark. Major backers get to be executive management?

Quite possibly the only way to make GW's management worse...

 pretre wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

skarsol wrote:
Only £81 million? Kickstarter incoming!

Kickstarter: Buy GW and fix things.

It'd probably hit that mark. Major backers get to be executive management?

Quite possibly the only way to make GW's management worse...

Worse?

I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?

 azreal13 wrote:
Worse?

I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?

Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.

Anyways, I'll let it go so we can stay on topic.

You'd need way more than £81m anyways, as the price would rocket as you started buying, especially if the idea was well known in advance.

I would guesstimate £105-120m when all was said and done.

 pretre wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Worse?

I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?

Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.

Anyways, I'll let it go so we can stay on topic.

LOL That's exactly what I was saying on the other thread.

dereksatkinson wrote:

 pretre wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Worse?

I'll give you the only way not to improve it, but worse?

Having seen enough 'this is how I would fix GW' threads around here, I can imagine how that would go down. Well-intentioned, ultimately devastating changes to the company that put it out of a business in a year.

Anyways, I'll let it go so we can stay on topic.

LOL That's exactly what I was saying on the other thread.

No mate, intentionally or not, what you were doing in the other thread was dismissing anyone's opinion if it wasn't yours and dismissing evidence if it didn't support your position.

I'm not saying everyone who ever posted an opinion about GW's business practices is some sort of business genius, but not every one is clueless either.

This one's lurching off topic on page one...

There's a reason the last one got closed!

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
So the whole of GW is worth no more than £160 million?
Wow, I would have expected it to be like 1 or 2 billion due to the IP.

Worth of IP that GW claims to have: 30 trillion US$.
Worth of IP that GW can prove ownership: 6.30 $

 Alpharius wrote:
This one's lurching off topic on page one...

There's a reason the last one got closed!

I promise not to start teasing anyone about their intimate knowledge of resin testicles this time.

 azreal13 wrote:
I promise not to start teasing anyone about their intimate knowledge of resin testicles this time.

I make no such promises.

 azreal13 wrote:
Nah, there has to be a documented and public attempt. I'm not sure how easy it is to 'try' rather than really try, but it isn't something you can just breeze past.

if existing shareholders don't particularly feel like selling, it's easy to breeze past. Why, you ask? Well, the idea is that existing shareholders get an 'out' if they really, really distrust the new guy on the block; as long as they're (somewhat) comfortable holding on, you're fine; I believe you have to make a realistic offer, but certainly not particularly enticing (and not over actual market value as independently appraised, IIRC.)

Caveat: this might differ between jurisdictions somewhat and I'm a bit rusty on this topic myself

 azreal13 wrote:
No mate, intentionally or not, what you were doing in the other thread was dismissing anyone's opinion if it wasn't yours and dismissing evidence if it didn't support your position.

I'm not saying everyone who ever posted an opinion about GW's business practices is some sort of business genius, but not every one is clueless either.

Umm no. I kept pointing out that you guys were making logic leaps with your assessment of the company's earnings that someone who was even remotely familiar with a balance sheet/income statement wouldn't make. Things that I understood before even taking my first non-paid internship. For example... having to explain that interest rates impact stock prices isn't something that should be controversial. Nor should the idea that if we start to see the economy weaken, it will negatively impact retail. Yet I see it being argued.

 azreal13 wrote:
You'd need way more than £81m anyways, as the price would rocket as you started buying, especially if the idea was well known in advance.

I would guesstimate £105-120m when all was said and done.

You honestly think that 50% of the shareholders would be willing to give up their shares for only a 40% premium? That's around 735 a share... that's not even a 52 week high. Do you realize how foolish that sounds? Someone has to be on the other end willing to sell.

You are completely pulling numbers out of your butt and this is exactly why I am posting on these threads. It's completely delusional to think you could even acquire 10% of a company at a 40% premium when it is this illiquid. Even 25% ownership wouldn't get you any meaningful voting rights. And do it over kickstarter??