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How on Earth are you getting that Hornby are a competitor?

Completely different market.

That aside, share price isn't a reflection of how a company is doing, it is a reflection of how the market thinks it is doing, and, as has been discussed, profits and dividends can be manipulated to offer a false, or at least massaged, view of how a company is doing.

Anybody would think there was a CEO with major share holdings approaching retirement age or something.

Riiiiight, because the financial sophisticates posting drivel in this thread are much, much, much smarter than your average institutional investor.

 azreal13 wrote:
How on Earth are you getting that Hornby are a competitor?

Completely different market.

That aside, share price isn't a reflection of how a company is doing, it is a reflection of how the market thinks it is doing, and, as has been discussed, profits and dividends can be manipulated to offer a false, or at least massaged, view of how a company is doing.

Anybody would think there was a CEO with major share holdings approaching retirement age or something.

No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

You are joking, right?

The city tends to get wind of dodgy dealings well before the person in the street who's been to a GW shop. There are people who make a good living purely by researching all the data on publicly-quoted companies. They pay for information, too. The massive bonuses help incentivise them.

No, I'm not joking.

There is no dodgy dealing, cutting costs and generating efficiencies are all perfectly legitimate actions.

The information presented to these experts shows a company that is maintaining revenue, cutting costs and paying healthy dividends.

At this moment in time, there is nothing wrong with GW as a business, or an investment IMO.

However, those of us who have some sort of idea how large companies operate AND know a good deal about wargaming can see a number of inconsistencies which may possibly bode ill in the medium term.

Remember, Kirby is a major shareholder, and several other investors have recently divested themselves of their shares, so who's to say that those people who make a good living haven't red flagged the company already?

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
[Pretty much entirely piffle.

Shall we look at other plastics molding companies, producing in similar volume? GW prices are high.

Because, at its core, that is what GW has become - a plastics molding company.

Plastics molding is less expensive per unit with larger runs. GW likely does have some of the largest runs in the industry.

Which means that they pay less per unit.

Kromlech is a cottage industry - which means manufacturing in smaller quantities, with lower savings for the company by means of higher production. And they do so with a more expensive material and slower process to manufacture their models.

And they are still beating GW with both price and quality.

I hate to tell you this - but if GW is selling to 13 year olds, and is selling to fewer and fewer 13 year olds then both are true. There is no need to pick between the two, they are not mutually exclusive.

And that is what is happening.

That is at the core of 'losing market share'.

Strange as it may sound - those 13 year olds? Their mums and dads kinda choke when they look at the price of The Hobbit game.... And the money is in the hands of those same parents.

Oy!

The Auld Grump

I can see this is an emotive subject - people are arguing on their prejudices, or assertions, not on facts.

Your assertion that mums and dads are choking at the price of the Hobbit are entirely plausible. But are you seriously arguing that Krlomlech don't have a lower cost base than GW? Last time I checked, their little resin Painboy conversion was every bit as expensive as GW's origina. Kromlech's version is also entirely derivative of GW's ideas. All credit to them for producing a nice, boutique product, but the notion that they make GW look radically overpriced simply isn't borne out by the facts.

Hmmm... let me think....

Why yes, I am seriously arguing that.

Now... take a look at the Orc Juggernauts from Kromlech.

Compare them to Ork MegaNobz from GW....

Less expensive, larger, better looking (in my opinion at the least*)....

And that without having a plastics molding company.

I rather doubt that GW pays even half as much for the Finecrap resin as Kromlech pays for the resin that they use. Even allowing for the price difference between the UK and Poland.

So... yeah. I do think that Kromlech has a higher overhead for manufacturing. By a considerable margin.

I did not cherrypick the Nobz - these were the Kromlech models that stuck in my mind when I first saw them, months ago. They are simply the example that I had to hand.

I do not play Orks - I just really liked those Juggernaut models.

The Auld Grump

* And I am not going to say that the Ork Meganobz look like crap - they don't. They just don't look as good to me as the Kromlech models.

Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

Brother Gyoken wrote:

 notprop wrote:

Brother Gyoken wrote:
I literally only own a 40K army because my friends do. If I got to pick what game we played, I'd choose Warmahordes, Malifaux, or maybe Infinity.

......

You do get to pick, you can do whatever you like. Your friends may just need a push in a different direction.

Not sure you want Warmahordes, apparently you need to "have a pair" to play, you seem happier with the status quo.

Ah yes, buying Warmahordes armies when my friends won't play seems like a wise choice. Thanks for pointing out the error of my ways.

What i don't understand is why people cannot try other systems (or so it seems) You don't need to buy their miniatures to play the game, just buy only (or download) the rules and proxy your 40k figures.
If some people will like it then they can start an army of that system.
For me it is different i have always been a fluff nut and collector first, gaming is secondary for me.

But i agree with most that is said in this thread, if GW doesn't change course it will slowly decent into Davy's locker (to mak an on topic commen )

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
What i don't understand is why people cannot try other systems (or so it seems)

Because some people just don't like the game. I don't need to try Warmachine to know that I think that the models look stupid and I have no interest in playing it. I don't need to try FoW to know that I don't like games smaller than 28mm because the models aren't as detailed or fun to paint. I don't need to try Blood Bowl to know that the entire fantasy sports game genre is about as interesting to me as watching paint dry. Don't confuse "haven't tried your favorite game enough to satisfy you" with "don't have good reasons to lack interest in it".

Jack_Death wrote:
Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

If GW did employ armies of analysts they wouldn't still be making statements about how their core market are 12-14 year olds who collect models to paint and don't care about balanced game rules.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
What i don't understand is why people cannot try other systems (or so it seems)

Because some people just don't like the game. I don't need to try Warmachine to know that I think that the models look stupid and I have no interest in playing it. I don't need to try FoW to know that I don't like games smaller than 28mm because the models aren't as detailed or fun to paint. I don't need to try Blood Bowl to know that the entire fantasy sports game genre is about as interesting to me as watching paint dry. Don't confuse "haven't tried your favorite game enough to satisfy you" with "don't have good reasons to lack interest in it".

Uh? what? not liking the the figures or the sytem are 2 different things, i am just saying to be open to different things. The most popular system doesn't mean that it is the best or the most fun to play.
The first warzone was a great tactical interesting game, the figures were somewhat lack luster.

(what was with the whole house rule sentence, it dissapeared when i replied)

Jack_Death wrote:
Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

I do because I am one (9 years retail-specific experience) and a lot of my friends work at the likes of BarCap, HSBC, UBS etc.

Broadly speaking Azreal is in the right.

To get detailed information of any quality requires a "working lunch" or due diligence work for a purchase, and even then the company will be spinning the numbers like a politician - I should know, I'm "finessing" a product-type 3-year sales record for our due diligence right now

Besides which GW is barely a grain of sand in the grand scheme of investment so no analyst is going to spend more than a cursory amount of time having a flick through their investor reports, "proper" analysis is generally done on request by the Big 4 accounting firms or when someone is actually eyeing up a takeover.

As an investment prospect I would consider investing in GW because I expect there will be a takeover in the short/medium term, but as a long term prospect under current management I'd rather set fire to my money.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Uh? what? not liking the the figures or the sytem are 2 different things, i am just saying to be open to different things. The most popular system doesn't mean that it is the best or the most fun to play.
The first warzone was a great tactical interesting game, the figures were somewhat lack luster.

The point is that even people who are open to new things don't necessarily want to try the awesome game you just found, and "does anyone play this game or even have any interest in playing it" is a perfectly legitimate factor to consider in choosing what (if any) game to invest a lot of money into.

(what was with the whole house rule sentence, it dissapeared when i replied)

That would be my signature.

If you are an analyst, I find it hard to believe that you agree with the statement that you know nothing about the market that you are responsible for analyzing. Note that I said MARKET, implying that you agree that you don't know anything about retail. It does not follow, of course, that you would have done a deep-dive on every single company in the segment as that would be impossible. I would bet good money that you are fluent in who the largest companies are by market cap in your segment, who are the big movers, and what industry standard metrics are for gross and operating margins, turnover, debt-equity, and so on. You would certainly know, based on a cursory analysis, if a company was high or low on any of these basic performance metrics relative to the industry. I would. This statement, that an institutional investor would have no knowledge of the market, was made in the context of firms that have already made substantial purchases and implied that they did so based on a superficial technical analysis. I expect that the due diligence that you describe and that I implied most certainly was on the agenda, and I stick to my (okay, overly snarky) statement that a comment to the contrary is at best ill-informed.

 Baragash wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

I do because I am one (9 years retail-specific experience) and a lot of my friends work at the likes of BarCap, HSBC, UBS etc.

Broadly speaking Azreal is in the right.

To get detailed information of any quality requires a "working lunch" or due diligence work for a purchase, and even then the company will be spinning the numbers like a politician - I should know, I'm "finessing" a product-type 3-year sales record for our due diligence right now

Besides which GW is barely a grain of sand in the grand scheme of investment so no analyst is going to spend more than a cursory amount of time having a flick through their investor reports, "proper" analysis is generally done on request by the Big 4 accounting firms or when someone is actually eyeing up a takeover.

As an investment prospect I would consider investing in GW because I expect there will be a takeover in the short/medium term, but as a long term prospect under current management I'd rather set fire to my money.

All I know is that if GW goes anywhere below £1.50 per share I will throw everything I have at it and probably take out a bank loan as well.

I've watched it go from £1 to £8 odd, back to £1.25 ish then up to whatever it is now.

I won't be missing out on that the next time it drops, which hopefully it will.

Jack_Death wrote:
If you are an analyst, I find it hard to believe that you agree with the statement that you know nothing about the market that you are responsible for analyzing. Note that I said MARKET, implying that you agree that you don't know anything about retail. It does not follow, of course, that you would have done a deep-dive on every single company in the segment as that would be impossible. I would bet good money that you are fluent in who the largest companies are by market cap in your segment, who are the big movers, and what industry standard metrics are for gross and operating margins, turnover, debt-equity, and so on. You would certainly know, based on a cursory analysis, if a company was high or low on any of these basic performance metrics relative to the industry. I would. This statement, that an institutional investor would have no knowledge of the market, was made in the context of firms that have already made substantial purchases and implied that they did so based on a superficial technical analysis. I expect that the due diligence that you describe and that I implied most certainly was on the agenda, and I stick to my (okay, overly snarky) statement that a comment to the contrary is at best ill-informed.

 Baragash wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

I do because I am one (9 years retail-specific experience) and a lot of my friends work at the likes of BarCap, HSBC, UBS etc.

Broadly speaking Azreal is in the right.

To get detailed information of any quality requires a "working lunch" or due diligence work for a purchase, and even then the company will be spinning the numbers like a politician - I should know, I'm "finessing" a product-type 3-year sales record for our due diligence right now

Besides which GW is barely a grain of sand in the grand scheme of investment so no analyst is going to spend more than a cursory amount of time having a flick through their investor reports, "proper" analysis is generally done on request by the Big 4 accounting firms or when someone is actually eyeing up a takeover.

As an investment prospect I would consider investing in GW because I expect there will be a takeover in the short/medium term, but as a long term prospect under current management I'd rather set fire to my money.

Ah, bless you for making the effort.

I suspect Baragash and I, when we say "market" we neither of us mean anything as ridiculously broad as "retail."

For myself, I was thinking more tabletop wargaming, model manufacture or you could even go as broad as toys. Either way, GW are more vertically integrated than just retail, so criteria for analysis would be different. In fact, I can't, off the top of my head, think of another PLC that designs, manufactures and retails its own product, and only its own product, globally. Perhaps Starbucks? But its late, I'm tired and not particularly motivated.

Regardless, every one of GW's direct competitors are privately owned, so it would be very difficult to assess their relative performance except through their own financials in their particular niche. An institutional investor is unlikely to be aware that Warmachine is growing at a rate of knots, unless he is given specific reason to research GW very closely. GW have had a perfectly adequate performance over the last few years, so why bother.

I will repeat that two major institutional investors divested themselves of their shares earlier this year, and a senior executive departed with apparently very little notice and hasn't been replaced. One could interpret that as rats leaving a sinking ship if one had a mind to. Not nailed on of course, but its fun to speculate.

But, don't let me, or someone who does this sort of thing for a living, dissuade you from your opinion, you may well be right. I just don't believe you are.

Fair enough, if I misread your intent re: "market" than mea culpa. I was comparing GW's metrics e.g. gross margins @ 75% to "specialty manufacturers" and "toy and games" just for the purpose of illustration, i.e. reading "market" as "industry segment".

I completely agree that they stand alone as a publicly traded, vertically integrated, wargaming company. In fact, I have made the same point repeatedly

ETA - back to the game - go Knicks!

 azreal13 wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
If you are an analyst, I find it hard to believe that you agree with the statement that you know nothing about the market that you are responsible for analyzing. Note that I said MARKET, implying that you agree that you don't know anything about retail. It does not follow, of course, that you would have done a deep-dive on every single company in the segment as that would be impossible. I would bet good money that you are fluent in who the largest companies are by market cap in your segment, who are the big movers, and what industry standard metrics are for gross and operating margins, turnover, debt-equity, and so on. You would certainly know, based on a cursory analysis, if a company was high or low on any of these basic performance metrics relative to the industry. I would. This statement, that an institutional investor would have no knowledge of the market, was made in the context of firms that have already made substantial purchases and implied that they did so based on a superficial technical analysis. I expect that the due diligence that you describe and that I implied most certainly was on the agenda, and I stick to my (okay, overly snarky) statement that a comment to the contrary is at best ill-informed.

 Baragash wrote:

Jack_Death wrote:
Possibly the funniest thing ever written on any forum, ever. Do you have any idea what an analyst does? The people we are talking about employ armies of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
No, the institutional investors make their decisions based on the company financials, and as they have no knowledge of the company's market would be completely unaware of potential trouble in the near future.

I do because I am one (9 years retail-specific experience) and a lot of my friends work at the likes of BarCap, HSBC, UBS etc.

Broadly speaking Azreal is in the right.

To get detailed information of any quality requires a "working lunch" or due diligence work for a purchase, and even then the company will be spinning the numbers like a politician - I should know, I'm "finessing" a product-type 3-year sales record for our due diligence right now

Besides which GW is barely a grain of sand in the grand scheme of investment so no analyst is going to spend more than a cursory amount of time having a flick through their investor reports, "proper" analysis is generally done on request by the Big 4 accounting firms or when someone is actually eyeing up a takeover.

As an investment prospect I would consider investing in GW because I expect there will be a takeover in the short/medium term, but as a long term prospect under current management I'd rather set fire to my money.

Ah, bless you for making the effort.

I suspect Baragash and I, when we say "market" we neither of us mean anything as ridiculously broad as "retail."

For myself, I was thinking more tabletop wargaming, model manufacture or you could even go as broad as toys. Either way, GW are more vertically integrated than just retail, so criteria for analysis would be different. In fact, I can't, off the top of my head, think of another PLC that designs, manufactures and retails its own product, and only its own product, globally. Perhaps Starbucks? But its late, I'm tired and not particularly motivated.

Regardless, every one of GW's direct competitors are privately owned, so it would be very difficult to assess their relative performance except through their own financials in their particular niche. An institutional investor is unlikely to be aware that Warmachine is growing at a rate of knots, unless he is given specific reason to research GW very closely. GW have had a perfectly adequate performance over the last few years, so why bother.

I will repeat that two major institutional investors divested themselves of their shares earlier this year, and a senior executive departed with apparently very little notice and hasn't been replaced. One could interpret that as rats leaving a sinking ship if one had a mind to. Not nailed on of course, but its fun to speculate.

But, don't let me, or someone who does this sort of thing for a living, dissuade you from your opinion, you may well be right. I just don't believe you are.