Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

"Games Workshop Group PLC wrote:
6 mos Revenue at £62.5m (2008: £61.2m) = STABLE

Net funds of £4.3m (2008: net borrowings £11.0m)

"Although sales have declined in the first half of the year in constant currency terms, profits and cash flow have increased significantly, delivering a positive cash balance of £4.3 million, up £15.3 million over last year. With improved operating margins we continue to open Hobby centres, confident that we can grow Games Workshop profitably in all existing territories."

In a down economy, GW has over 4M GBP cash on hand vs being in hock by 11M GBP .

Looks like their premium pricing plan is working splendidly and that people will pay whatever GW charges.

I've also heard that GW can do no wrong.

chaplaingrabthar wrote:What's Kirby's main area of business expertise? Just a bean-counter?

Howlingmoon has it right, he was the CEO prior to Mark Wells. Additionally Tom Kirby was the man that bought GW from Bryan Ansell (now owner of Wargames Foundry) in the early 90's and floated it on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. Tom's the guy who has lead the company forward in leaps and bounds ever since. Sure, sometimes there have been mistakes made (some small, some big), but all along the man with the guiding hand has been Tom.

I have a lot of respect for Tom Kirby and while, no doubt, some of the decisions he'll make in the coming years will be difficult (some mistakes some not), if anyone has the big picture in front of him (not always the details though) it is Mr Kirby.

Cheers
Dave

Thanks davetaylor.

I knew that Kirby was the former CEO but I didn't know what type of CEO he is. I know it's common in some businesses to use interim CEO's for things like set-up and public flotation*, I was just curious as to what Kirby's expertise as a CEO was.

I may have been overly hyperbolic in my bean-counter description

*I know it's an entirely different type of business, but Virgin F1 hired John Booth as their CEO, replace him for a month with Alex Tai (who's known to be good with start-ups and contract negotiations) and replaced Tai a month later with John Booth (who has a racing background), so it's clear that Tai was a CEO with a specific set of expertise

Wow Baltimore sounds terrible. I am surprised GWHQ is located there if its so bad. I just don't get it.

Tom Kirby was also the driving force behind GW releasing complete boxed versions of their games which included the models. I can't recall if it was 40k 2nd edition of WFB 4th edition ( I think.. High Elves and gobbos wasn't it ? With a cardboard griffon and... chariot ? ) but the production and release of that was mainly his baby.

And that's worked quite well.

I believe he did actually leave the company at some point before being head hunted back again. I think.

Shaman wrote:Wow Baltimore sounds terrible. I am surprised GWHQ is located there if its so bad. I just don't get it.

First, GWHQ is in Glen Burnie, which is outside of Baltimore... Not even the same county, even.

Second, Baltimore isn't quite as bad as some make it. It's not Detroit. (I like to hope that the media image of Detroit as a burned-out wreck is an exaggeration.) There are bad parts to Baltimore, but the nice parts are... nice. Your life is not in unusual levels of danger unless you go looking for trouble.

I was looking for real estate last year, and a couple searches found some very cheap property in Baltimore. There's lots with condemned old houses on them available for a song ($20-$40,000). They're basically sold as investment properties. If you're lucky, you might buy just before a neighborhood is targeted for gentrification and have a lot that can be redeveloped and resold for a half-million. If you aren't lucky, well, hopefully that $40,000 wasn't the kid's college fund.

Anyway, people coming down for events like the Baltimore Games Day aren't going to be killed on sight. Probably.

GW didn't pick Baltimore because of reputation, they picked it for common sense business reasons.

GW was in England and thus needed to ship their products by ship. They needed a location that wasn't far from a major shipping point and who's location was a the time business friendly (low taxes, right to work state) and had nearby access to an international airport. Thus Baltimore was an easy choice and also near major population centers. I think they've had a physical office in the US since the early 90s.

As the business grows and they hire employees (whom might have family in the area) it becomes insanely expensive and disruptive to day-to-day business to move the HQ to another location. Who pays for the staff moving fees? Will the employees move or will they just look for another job? Loss of too many quality employees can impact a business.

Baltimore is now the murder capital of the US (and the syphillis capital too so watch it!), but the core business isn't in Baltimore, its in a light industrial/suburban area.

Having worked there at the GW HQ US for nearly 9 years, the area in Glen Burnie is not terrible at all. Not great, but not horrible either. I grew up on a farm, so population centers are not on the top of my desired living areas.

Actually Jason, it was 1984 that GW US was kicked off. Probably missed celebrating their 25th anniversary last year ; )

Everything else, pretty much spot on.

Cheers
Dave

davetaylor wrote:Actually Jason, it was 1984 that GW US was kicked off. Probably missed celebrating their 25th anniversary last year ; )

I don't know how I missed that. I don't remember them doing anything regarding 25 yrs at Games Day which would have been an opportune time to do that. Did they?

davetaylor wrote:

chaplaingrabthar wrote:What's Kirby's main area of business expertise? Just a bean-counter?

Howlingmoon has it right, he was the CEO prior to Mark Wells. Additionally Tom Kirby was the man that bought GW from Bryan Ansell (now owner of Wargames Foundry) in the early 90's and floated it on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. Tom's the guy who has lead the company forward in leaps and bounds ever since. Sure, sometimes there have been mistakes made (some small, some big), but all along the man with the guiding hand has been Tom.

I have a lot of respect for Tom Kirby and while, no doubt, some of the decisions he'll make in the coming years will be difficult (some mistakes some not), if anyone has the big picture in front of him (not always the details though) it is Mr Kirby.

Cheers
Dave

Also, diod some digging. Mr. Baker retired, not a case of "head rolling" that's part of why Mr. Kirby is over here. Mr. Wells and the CFO are apparently in town as well. At least that's what I got from some local sources.

I'm starting to disbelieve the whole "Big Tom is coming to kill people" vibe.

Howlingmoon wrote:

davetaylor wrote:

chaplaingrabthar wrote:What's Kirby's main area of business expertise? Just a bean-counter?

Howlingmoon has it right, he was the CEO prior to Mark Wells. Additionally Tom Kirby was the man that bought GW from Bryan Ansell (now owner of Wargames Foundry) in the early 90's and floated it on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. Tom's the guy who has lead the company forward in leaps and bounds ever since. Sure, sometimes there have been mistakes made (some small, some big), but all along the man with the guiding hand has been Tom.

I have a lot of respect for Tom Kirby and while, no doubt, some of the decisions he'll make in the coming years will be difficult (some mistakes some not), if anyone has the big picture in front of him (not always the details though) it is Mr Kirby.

Cheers
Dave

Also, diod some digging. Mr. Baker retired, not a case of "head rolling" that's part of why Mr. Kirby is over here. Mr. Wells and the CFO are apparently in town as well. At least that's what I got from some local sources.

I'm starting to disbelieve the whole "Big Tom is coming to kill people" vibe.

I hope that's the case, as I really like Ernie and would not have liked to see him forced out. Sadly, one source I talked to seemed to feel that was the case. I'll know one way or another when I run into him next.

UPDATE: Did some more digging.

Mr. Baker was not -exactly- forced out, he apparently chose to retire and voluntarily stepped down because his view for the N.A Business was not working. Word is that Big Tom and company wanted him to stay but he chose to step down anyway because he felt his performance was not acceptable to his own standards that he expects of his people.

That said, apparently heads are rolling at the district and regional management level.

Also, Big Tom seems to be of the mind to let the individual store managers do what they feel is best to grow their local community, if they try something and it doesn't work, they'll got to "have a talk" with people higher up, but if they do nothing, they will be replaced by someone that will.

Howlingmoon wrote:UPDATE: Did some more digging.

Mr. Baker was not -exactly- forced out, he apparently chose to retire and voluntarily stepped down because his view for the N.A Business was not working. Word is that Big Tom and company wanted him to stay but he chose to step down anyway because he felt his performance was not acceptable to his own standards that he expects of his people.

That said, apparently heads are rolling at the district and regional management level.

Also, Big Tom seems to be of the mind to let the individual store managers do what they feel is best to grow their local community, if they try something and it doesn't work, they'll got to "have a talk" with people higher up, but if they do nothing, they will be replaced by someone that will.

Nice, so the one's who take a chance will get summarily executed, and the ones who try to play it safe will get axed. Sounds like a really bad time to be a black shirt.

the conversion on curency helped alot this year. many people bought direct because the Euro was strong against the pound. this im sure had an effeect on sales.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
this by way of being back to topic.

efarrer wrote:

Howlingmoon wrote:UPDATE: Did some more digging.

Mr. Baker was not -exactly- forced out, he apparently chose to retire and voluntarily stepped down because his view for the N.A Business was not working. Word is that Big Tom and company wanted him to stay but he chose to step down anyway because he felt his performance was not acceptable to his own standards that he expects of his people.

That said, apparently heads are rolling at the district and regional management level.

Also, Big Tom seems to be of the mind to let the individual store managers do what they feel is best to grow their local community, if they try something and it doesn't work, they'll got to "have a talk" with people higher up, but if they do nothing, they will be replaced by someone that will.

Nice, so the one's who take a chance will get summarily executed, and the ones who try to play it safe will get axed. Sounds like a really bad time to be a black shirt.

Sorry but you are so off base there. Managers taking responsibility for their stores and delivering the goods is what being a manager is all about. With an established business and it just being retail there aren't exactly big risks to take. Being held accountable and making decisions and living or dying (metaphorically) by them is what management is about. If a manager doesn't realize that then he shouldn't be in the job. Also, a manger doesn't fully make decisions - his regional manager will have some input.

Don't make it out to be something it isn't.

Retail mangement is one of the crummiest jobs, period. I won't even touch it, I'd stay a peon forever rather than try to climb that greased pole.

As the manager, you are totally responsable for everything that goes wrong. However, you are almost always so bound up in corporate rules and regualtions that you can't do anything to fix things that are going wrong in the first place.

The corps hikes prices 3 times in two years, causing people to stop buying your product and therefore your sales don't reach your required sales goals? Manager gets fired.

The corps open a second (or even third!) branch less than a mile away, stealing half (or more!) of your business? Manager gets fired.

Too many managers meeting all their goals and going to bonus? The corps move the goalposts.

Work your butt off to make labor goals? The corps decide that if you managed (barely) with X hours, then you should be able to do it with .75 X hours.


Your reward for putting up with this? Surly employees, clueless customers, promotion prospects that range from dismal to 'yeah, right!' and a paycheck only marginally higher than your hourly employees get - which turns out to be well under minimum wage when you adjust for the 70+ hours a week you work.

Note: There is, indeed, some exaggeration in this post. But not as much as you might think...


EDIT: Sorry, that rant should probably have gone into the off-topic forum...

GW is a very pleseant company to work for in my experience. Never had the problems I've had in other jobs with them, and you do feel valued.

Really rather different to the overall Retail workplace, which does indeed normally suck.

Howlingmoon wrote:UPDATE: Did some more digging.

Mr. Baker was not -exactly- forced out, he apparently chose to retire and voluntarily stepped down because his view for the N.A Business was not working. Word is that Big Tom and company wanted him to stay but he chose to step down anyway because he felt his performance was not acceptable to his own standards that he expects of his people.

That said, apparently heads are rolling at the district and regional management level.

Also, Big Tom seems to be of the mind to let the individual store managers do what they feel is best to grow their local community, if they try something and it doesn't work, they'll got to "have a talk" with people higher up, but if they do nothing, they will be replaced by someone that will.

Explains why the local GW manager is asking customer's what they want to see as far as "offerings" in the store. They offered an "advanced" terrain making class, unfortunately I missed out due to moving. Being a model railroader as well, there's not much that I thought I didn't know about making terrain, modeling (and doing S-Gauge means almost everything you do is customer built) but the guy teaching this class had some cool stuff to teach, techniques that used to take me an hour so he did in under 15 minutes..... (at least that's what I got from people who took the class).

I'm hoping that while corporate is wanting managers to "take charge", that those at the district and regional levels are going to be told to back them up and actually be effective instead of just being bean counters and sales trackers.

Update: Word is going around that Area and Regional Management is being or has been eliminated and that they are planning to go to the "1 Man Store" for the "majority" of the US Business.

Also there may be a large list of positions available for the new corporate office in Memphis.

Howlingmoon wrote:Update: Word is going around that Area and Regional Management is being or has been eliminated and that they are planning to go to the "1 Man Store" for the "majority" of the US Business.

Well they worked in Sunderland...