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And that, probably above anything, is why GW is failing. We need Kirby out but that is what we are getting so with some luck we can get someone else in that isn't afraid of his staff and that might with some luck not hire characterless minions but competent capable people.

Great post Kroothawk

 Kroothawk wrote:

3.) The accountant getting the numbers for the annual report claims that Nottingham has a negative inflation, while the rest of UK had a 2.7% inflation (exactly the amount the total revenue grew in that year), so he obviously wasn't hired for skills either.

Just to correct one misunderstanding. "Constant currency" does not refer to inflation. It refers to exchange rate fluctuations. The accounts are numerated in UK£, but a lot of actual business is transacted in foreign currencies - e.g. US$, AU$, Euros, etc. During the year the exchange rate of the UK£ versus these other currencies moves and so a $1 of sales at 1st June 2012 would realise a different amount of UK£ than it did at 30th May 2013. The "constant currency" calculation ignores those fluctuations and revalues all foreign currency transactions, assets and liabilities at a single average value.

This of course is very different from the effect of discounting for inflation, which is what I understand you to believe it meant. The impact of discounting for inflation over the longer term can be found in my first post in this thread where broadly speaking they are only selling stuff at volumes last seen in 2001, and generally there has been a decline in real terms sales over the last 8 years or so. removing the "LotR bubble" effect, there hasn't been any real growth in sales this century! Coincidentally, GW suffered a market capitalisation in 1999 .... hmmmmm ,,,,

I have a theory that the short termism inherent in managing a company with a stock market listing is bad for all but the largest companies. GW is a case in point, despite Kirby's regular rhetoric to the contrary.

 ceorron wrote:
And that, probably above anything, is why GW is failing. We need Kirby out but that is what we are getting so with some luck we can get someone else in that isn't afraid of his staff and that might with some luck not hire characterless minions but competent capable people.

Great post Kroothawk

Whoa, this is news. You may want to give all of GWs investors a heads up that GW is failing!

 cincydooley wrote:

 ceorron wrote:
And that, probably above anything, is why GW is failing. We need Kirby out but that is what we are getting so with some luck we can get someone else in that isn't afraid of his staff and that might with some luck not hire characterless minions but competent capable people.

Great post Kroothawk

Whoa, this is news. You may want to give all of GWs investors a heads up that GW is failing!

Don't worry, at the rate that they are selling the stock, they probably already know...

 cincydooley wrote:

 ceorron wrote:
And that, probably above anything, is why GW is failing. We need Kirby out but that is what we are getting so with some luck we can get someone else in that isn't afraid of his staff and that might with some luck not hire characterless minions but competent capable people.

Great post Kroothawk

Whoa, this is news. You may want to give all of GWs investors a heads up that GW is failing!

See my post above. GW investors couldn't likely give much of a stuff that it could (potentially... no guarantees!) see a downturn in its business prospects some years hence. For us as gamers it matters. For them as investors as long as they see a good dividend payout, and that the accounts and business plan show a profit for last year and the next, they really couldn't give a stuff about anything else. At some point, if they do reach a critical point and turnover heads south, their stock price will crash. Up to and until the night before that point that that news is announced, the share price will continue to rise. It's called "risk management". To be honest, most businesses *could* fail given the wrong set of circumstances, so it isn't such irrational a point of view to hold as I make it sound. But still.

If I were considering buying GW shares (which I am not) I would be looking at their performance continuing for a few years (which would still net me a decent profit on share price growth) but not for the longer term. But then which company anywhere can give you any comfort over the "Long term". One time of day blue chip banks were a good long term investment, but not nowadays. Apple? Google? IBM? Facebook? All of them are looking at long term uncertainty, yet it doesn't affect their share price now as everyone expects the inevitable downturn in business to be some ways off still. The stock market isn't about "long term" anything. It's all about the next quarter and squeezing out as much blood as possible before the carcass dies, then dumping the stock so the next guy takes the hit. It's not about investing for long term growth - that's what family businesses (like BMW) do, not ones listed publically on a stock exchange.

 cincydooley wrote:

 ceorron wrote:
And that, probably above anything, is why GW is failing. We need Kirby out but that is what we are getting so with some luck we can get someone else in that isn't afraid of his staff and that might with some luck not hire characterless minions but competent capable people.

Great post Kroothawk

Whoa, this is news. You may want to give all of GWs investors a heads up that GW is failing!

Well if Kirby is putting out ramblings like this I can't imagine the investors thinking anything else but.

I don't mean from a financial perspective but from a process and procedures perspective. Failing in the sense that the director seems to be falling apart. Unless he is the exception but i'm going to guess this is just an indication of the health of the company. This says nothing for the health of the company financially, I believe that is a OK and that is probably OK with the investors seen as all they seem to care about is the financials not whether the company is actually in good health.

Osbad wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:

3.) The accountant getting the numbers for the annual report claims that Nottingham has a negative inflation, while the rest of UK had a 2.7% inflation (exactly the amount the total revenue grew in that year), so he obviously wasn't hired for skills either.

Just to correct one misunderstanding. "Constant currency" does not refer to inflation. It refers to exchange rate fluctuations. The accounts are numerated in UK£, but a lot of actual business is transacted in foreign currencies - e.g. US$, AU$, Euros, etc. During the year the exchange rate of the UK£ versus these other currencies moves and so a $1 of sales at 1st June 2012 would realise a different amount of UK£ than it did at 30th May 2013. The "constant currency" calculation ignores those fluctuations and revalues all foreign currency transactions, assets and liabilities at a single average value.

This of course is very different from the effect of discounting for inflation, which is what I understand you to believe it meant. The impact of discounting for inflation over the longer term can be found in my first post in this thread where broadly speaking they are only selling stuff at volumes last seen in 2001, and generally there has been a decline in real terms sales over the last 8 years or so. removing the "LotR bubble" effect, there hasn't been any real growth in sales this century! Coincidentally, GW suffered a market capitalisation in 1999 .... hmmmmm ,,,,

I have a theory that the short termism inherent in managing a company with a stock market listing is bad for all but the largest companies. GW is a case in point, despite Kirby's regular rhetoric to the contrary.

Constant currency is used because they have to express these values at a single point in time. Since currency rates change daily, the Balance Sheet should reflect the assets and liabilities at a specific point in time. Since the income statement (P&L) reflects a time period, you'll typically use an average of the exchange rates for the year. Any gains or losses related to currency translation will flow through Other Comprehensive Income and will be reflected on the equity statement which ties into the balance sheet.

Speaking of inflation, you shouldn't see anything adjusted for inflation on actual numbers. Inflation would be taken into account when they are showing unaudited forecasts as a supplement to the financial statements. On top of that there should be a requirement stating they are unaudited numbers and management's estimate or forward looking statements. Unless this is a statutory requirement for the UK that I am not aware of. On top of that, if it is a mistake of that magnitude, that would be a material misstatement and under the SEC rules would warrant the Company to restate. Since the audit firm is PWC, I am more apt to believe it was done properly. If it was the accounting firm "Dowey, Cheetum, and Howe LLP" I would be more suspect.

 ceorron wrote:

Well if Kirby is putting out ramblings like this I can't imagine the investors thinking anything else but.

The "ramblings" are directed at GW shareholdes and people with a vested interest in the success of the company.

Of course it's going to push the party line.

A great number of the zingers he includes in the preamble are in direct response to previous comments made 'attacking' GW. I mean, it's really in line with Twain's famous, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" quote.

boyd wrote:

There are few jobs where you can be a cynical donkey-cave and keep it. Yes, you want someone who has the basic skill set (ie for technical positions you want someone who has a degree or certification) but if they have a poor work ethic and are not efficient workers, then you don't want them working for you. You're acting like skill and enthusiasm are mutually exclusive when in fact they are two different axis. Most high performers are both enthusiastic and good at what they do. One trait is learned whereas the other is usually not.

Exactly. Personally I could never be good in customer service (and yes, I've worked there). Whilst a corporate drone full of forced enthusiasm can be turn-off for customers, a real-life equivalent of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons would be even worse.

As for Kirby's comment about Pokemon, you have to remember the context. Kirby was not addressing gaming community. He - and nearly everyone who has worked in wargaming industry - has probably heard quite a many comments like this:
"What, miniatures wargaming? Wow, I didn't even know such thing still existed. You do realize that your business is going to get killed by computer games/Tamagochi/Pokemon within couple of years, do you? Listen, pal - if I were you, I'd get away from such a sunset industry ASAP. Sell your stock if they have any value, and invest on dotcom startups - that's where the money is, baby!"

 BryllCream wrote:

 Megalomaniac wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The biggest threat to GW are its own staff?

What does this mean?

It means that having shops staffed by anti social bullying blackshirts makes for poor sales. Hence a drive towards recruiting people based on their customer service skills rather than how many armies you have painted.

To be fair, this hasn't been the case for at least a decade.. It wasn't the case when I worked there many years ago, the last of the 'old guard', of long haired guys sat in the shadows at the back of the shop while thrash metal played at obscene volumes and a kids mum would tip-toe into the store (wondering what her son had got into), had gone even back then.

Kroothawk - the 'yes men' issue unfortunately is endemic in so many businesses industries these days, and seems to have happened to GW as it grew larger. It's something I experienced first hand (and again this is going back many years, but I can't imagine it has changed since then). Mix in with a nice bit of social maladjustment (the hobby attracts them) and you've got a working environment that generally shop staff survive in for 6-18 months (depending on the thickness of their skin) before they have enough of it and move on.

Zweischneid wrote:

Alabaster.clown wrote:
Prices went up, number of releases increased, overheads were removed, but sales were down so the dividend was paid from cash reserves and overall profit margin was virtually flat.

Is that a fairly accurate summary?

Number of releases did not increase all that much. They just released em differently, with more Codex books in the mix than the previous release format. That, perhaps, may not be working

Zweischneid wrote:

boyd wrote:


Isn't that Q3 and Q4? GW has a 52/53 week year from June to May. Q3 would be Dec to Feb and Q4 would be Mar to May. The June releases are Q1 for next year.

For GW's financial year, yes.

I didn't make that table for the current financial year. I made it a few weeks ago - and 40K specific at that - as already back than people where claiming that GW was churning out significantly more product in 6th Edition than they had ever before.

They simply don't. They just added a few more books to a fairly steady miniature-release schedule.

Personally, I think looking at plastic production gives a better impression. I only looked at Fantasy and 40k, and I ignored the single non-monster characters that have been released recently in coming up with these numbers. If they were included, it would be a bump over the past two years. I also only counted the starter sets as a single release, but if they count for more it has a boost in 2008, 2010 and 2012 by whatever you want to count the sets as.

2008: 20
2009: 27
2010: 33
2011: 29
2012: 30
2013 (through August): 26

Didn't go to 2007 since that's when the old multipart characters were released, and wasn't sure how I'd compare them with the other sets (if I include them, I think I'd have to include the recent plastic characters). Seems roughly level if the end of this year doesn't have many releases.

Not that it means much, but comparing January through August over the past 6 years comes out with these numbers:
2008: 13
2009: 17
2010: 23
2011: 21
2012: 23
2013: 26

So last year (which these financials covered roughly) seems to be about on par with releases since 2010. 2013 is potentially a bigger year in terms of plastic releases (particularly when you add the characters back in).

boyd wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Speaking as someone who used to have responsibility for training new staff, I'll take a cynical genius over an enthusiastic idiot every time.

I couldn't agree more with that statement. I will fully admit a lot of that depends on the context of the job but in my context hell ya.

Put a cynical donkey-cave in a customer service job and see how we'll the people on Dakka react. GW is falling apart, I got poor customer service. It's the end of days.

There are few jobs where you can be a cynical donkey-cave and keep it. Yes, you want someone who has the basic skill set (ie for technical positions you want someone who has a degree or certification) but if they have a poor work ethic and are not efficient workers, then you don't want them working for you. You're acting like skill and enthusiasm are mutually exclusive when in fact they are two different axis. Most high performers are both enthusiastic and good at what they do. One trait is learned whereas the other is usually not.

Except I didn't write cynical donkey cave did I? That might be what you read, but I used the word genius. I have a fairly extensive background in retail sales management, much like GW staff, and a cynical genius knows how to give good CS he just doesn't necessarily believe the tripe he's peddling like an enthusiastic idiot would have to. I've worked with cynical guys whose CS was second to nothing except their sales ability, not one customer would have anything bad to say about them, I've also worked with guys who were enthusiastic, but just didn't have the ability, and they were way more problematic.

Just because you're cynical doesn't mean you will treat customers badly. It means you react like a logical person to being told you have to somehow make every sale 50$ rather than a weekly or monthly target, the very dangerous reality based thought of "how is that even possible" might pop into your head. It's understandable that any business wants to make as much money as possible, there are realistic goals and then there are pie in the sky goals. These guys are under the gun to move product but aren't on commission and can't even discount on large purchases, they have none of the tools normal salesman are allotted and they're expected to make miracles happen in a pretty thankless environment. I've been in jobs where middle management actually listened and would often go to bat for line workers who they felt were giving an honest effort, the entire workplace was better for it. I've also been in jobs where the entire company is run like a blind dictatorship with no concept of basic arithmetic and they're not great places to work, they're also out of touch with reality and sales represent that every time.

I was once asked why I didn’t sell a warranty to a customer by a sales manager, I explained that the customer spoke no english and the entire interaction involved pointing at a product and holding up money(I wasn't selling the individuak on anythingm just processing a transaction). I was told quite sternly I should have sold them a warranty. When I kindly asked how the manager told me to “draw it out” when I asked what a warranty looked like and how to draw it I was reprimanded. I wasn’t being a smartass, I genuinely wanted to know, it meant more money in both our pockets.

I get it, I’m under the gun for numbers, they’re under the gun for numbers but sometimes it’s so obviously a blood from a stone situation and you juts see people under pressure lashing out at those under them and it makes for a toxic environment. Kirby’s little fiefdom sounds very familiar.

If I were to ask a manager at GW “what do I do when a customer discovers the internet to incentivize them to still purchase from our store” I’m sure the answer would be equal parts hilarious and sad, very very sad. The one big difference is at least most retailers have weekly flyers and SALES, you know, basic freakin incentives to get butts in the door. GW seems like the place where the frontline worker would be blamed for it being slow. It wouldn't surprise me seeing as the CEO thinks the biggest liability to the company is its own employees. Sounds like a real morale booster..

Kirby seems to be either delusional or is just dialling his performances in. As long as investors get that sweet dividend there is no need to look further or for Kirby et al to change their practices. He could survive a few relatively bad years (against GW standards).

GW have no need to change unless a business offering similar product and services lists itself on the stock market and can offer investors something for their outlay. this doesn't seem to be forthcoming so I would guess that Gw will continue on its course for the foreseeable future.

This, of course, is great news.

1. I guess.
2. Seems so.
3. I would say "marginal improvement" in overhead
4. Sales are not down, they are up a bit
5. ... not exactly. They declare a cash dividend, they pay it in cash. They run a business, and it (hopefully) generates excess cash i.e. cash that the board does not think needs to be retained. If they decide to pay out more than they net from operations in a given period, reserves go down. Sales could be way way way up and it could still work out that way. Your question implies causality and my answer is "well, not exactly".
6. Profit margins were improved, definitely not flat. Profit margins improved more than overhead was reduced.

IMHO, of course.

Alabaster.clown wrote:
1. Prices went up, 2. number of releases increased, 3. overheads were removed, 4. but sales were down 5. so the dividend was paid from cash reserves and 6. overall profit margin was virtually flat.

Is that a fairly accurate summary?

decker_cky wrote:


Personally, I think looking at plastic production gives a better impression. I only looked at Fantasy and 40k, and I ignored the single non-monster characters that have been released recently in coming up with these numbers. If they were included, it would be a bump over the past two years. I also only counted the starter sets as a single release, but if they count for more it has a boost in 2008, 2010 and 2012 by whatever you want to count the sets as.

2008: 20
2009: 27
2010: 33
2011: 29
2012: 30
2013 (through August): 26

<snip>

So last year (which these financials covered roughly) seems to be about on par with releases since 2010. 2013 is potentially a bigger year in terms of plastic releases (particularly when you add the characters back in).

Which is fine either way. I'm not gonna release semantics about what releases to count or not to count.

Point is, claims that GW suddenly doubled (or tripled, or quadrupled) their production output are clearly unfounded. They haven't. They're plotting along like they always have been.

Dakkadakka has always committed the fallacy of looking at Codex books, rather than miniatures, in all things GW. Whether its their business success, their "bias" towards Space Marines over Xenos, whatever. But Codexes are easy and cheap to make.

In terms of miniatures, GW has NOT suddenly started working longer hours or something. They are in business-as-usual-mode. thats it.

They only have some many tooling hours to go around. They can't suddenly double their plastic kit production without buying way more machinery and hiring more people (and training them). It goes against GW's dedication to keeping their overhead down to suddenly sink a bunch of money into more tooling. They'd much rather give a dividend than reinvest in more production.

 azreal13 wrote:

Except I didn't write cynical donkey cave did I? That might be what you read, but I used the word genius. I have a fairly extensive background in retail sales management, much like GW staff, and a cynical genius knows how to give good CS he just doesn't necessarily believe the tripe he's peddling like an enthusiastic idiot would have to. I've worked with cynical guys whose CS was second to nothing except their sales ability, not one customer would have anything bad to say about them, I've also worked with guys who were enthusiastic, but just didn't have the ability, and they were way more problematic.

And that's great if your area is littered with geniuses. But I think we've all seen enough cynical, antisocial "sterotypes" in this hobby to know that it just isn't true. In fact, I'd argue that it would behoove GW to hire the antithesis of "gamer" for their retail locations as often as possible.

 Zweischneid wrote:
Dakkadakka has always committed the fallacy of looking at Codex books, rather than miniatures, in all things GW. Whether its their business success, their "bias" towards Space Marines over Xenos, whatever. But Codexes are easy and cheap to make.

In terms of miniatures, GW has NOT suddenly started working longer hours or something. They are in business-as-usual-mode. thats it.

If they were cheap and easy to make, GW would make them more quickly. GW is first and foremost a miniatures company, but that doesn't imply anything about the difficulty of producing and releasing armybooks.

Also, I'm not going to look too closely into it, but I imagine that the number of sprues GW is making hasn't increased all that much since 2008 and 2009 either. That's roughly when they started doing the single sprue with everything on it approach to army boxes rather than having the main sprue, and the command sprue, etc..

But no, there's not a huge difference in what GW is releasing.

 Wolfstan wrote:
So in layman's terms (basically so us thickos can understand) are GW only making money due to price increases and cost cutting? If so what happens when they can't make any more cost cuts? will they just keep upping the price to make up for the shortfall in sales?

Price increase in Australia went up by 7-15% over two years.. "Growth" in the last year went up by 7.7%.. This includes some of the biggest releases we've seen to three-four years... So they're basically barely breaking even.. I suspect pirating and ebay since the hobby here in Australia is growing.. But they claim it went down here by 4%... All I know is consumer trust is way down, for many different reasons, as a whole... This is going to be their greatest challenge since as someone said they made no mention of direct competitors making substantially more growth..

 cincydooley wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

Except I didn't write cynical donkey cave did I? That might be what you read, but I used the word genius. I have a fairly extensive background in retail sales management, much like GW staff, and a cynical genius knows how to give good CS he just doesn't necessarily believe the tripe he's peddling like an enthusiastic idiot would have to. I've worked with cynical guys whose CS was second to nothing except their sales ability, not one customer would have anything bad to say about them, I've also worked with guys who were enthusiastic, but just didn't have the ability, and they were way more problematic.

And that's great if your area is littered with geniuses. But I think we've all seen enough cynical, antisocial "sterotypes" in this hobby to know that it just isn't true. In fact, I'd argue that it would behoove GW to hire the antithesis of "gamer" for their retail locations as often as possible.

See, what you've gone and done there is make an error on two points. Firstly, you've taken my exaggeration for effect (cynical genius) and taken it at face value, whereas a more accurate (but less catchy) term would be "individual who isn't invested, but has the intellect and ability to make it appear that way to those who matter."

Secondly, you've slightly straw manned. I didn't advocate employing "gamers" or, again, for the sake of clarity "awkward, antisocial, slightly malodorous" but I disagreed with Kirby's assertion of attitude over skills/experience.

Again, give me talented individuals who don't give a gak over the equivalent of dogs with their heads out of the collective car window all day, every day.

Of course, an enthusiastic genius would be best, but they tend to be rare in minimum wage, thankless, high pressure retail sales jobs, and transient when they do pop up.

Some more tidbits from the report:

Tom Kirby owns 2,106,009 shares, he granted himself a dividend of £ 1,221,485 (in addition to his salary of £ 352,000 totalling £ 1,573485). He is not included in the official list of the top 7 shareholders, although he would have been fourth. But:"None of the directors had a material interest in any contract of significance to which the Company, or any of its subsidiaries, was a party during the year."

The annual report acknowledges (because it has to) that GW is breaking the UK Corporate Governance Code 2010 in several ways.
- Chairman and CEO are the same person.
- The so called independent directors both serve for more than 9 years, which conflicts with the guidelines for independence.

But the board decided, that this is okay. And that they will tell, when they become not independent anymore

 azreal13 wrote:


Again, give me talented individuals who don't give a gak over the equivalent of dogs with their heads out of the collective car window all day, every day.

Of course, an enthusiastic genius would be best, but they tend to be rare in minimum wage, thankless, high pressure retail sales jobs, and transient when they do pop up.

Having had to supervise and direct both in a non-sales environment, I'll take unskilled enthusiasm over or talented cynic. The enthusiastic one might forget procedures and safety. The cynic ignores procedures and safety. The extra time spent training the unskilled one outweighed the time dealing with the complaints and incident reports generated by the cynic.

The cynic did great work, but within a year he was causing a toxic work environment where a number of people hated to work with him because of his attitude.

The in the same time, the unskilled one had managers writing letters of recommendation to help him get into college.

I think it depends on the education and skill level of the job. Employees need to feel stimulated at work--else they will be dissatisfied. So, if you have a biology major working retail---yeah probably better to have a motivated high school educated employee in that case--as the biology major will likely feel unfulfilled and naturally grow a bit cynical. "Overqualified" is the common term tossed around---but essentially it just means "You will not be happy or driven to exceed at this job".

Of course, there are always exceptions--and a great deal of other characteristics that weigh in on if an employee will be a good fit.

 azreal13 wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

Except I didn't write cynical donkey cave did I? That might be what you read, but I used the word genius. I have a fairly extensive background in retail sales management, much like GW staff, and a cynical genius knows how to give good CS he just doesn't necessarily believe the tripe he's peddling like an enthusiastic idiot would have to. I've worked with cynical guys whose CS was second to nothing except their sales ability, not one customer would have anything bad to say about them, I've also worked with guys who were enthusiastic, but just didn't have the ability, and they were way more problematic.

And that's great if your area is littered with geniuses. But I think we've all seen enough cynical, antisocial "sterotypes" in this hobby to know that it just isn't true. In fact, I'd argue that it would behoove GW to hire the antithesis of "gamer" for their retail locations as often as possible.

See, what you've gone and done there is make an error on two points. Firstly, you've taken my exaggeration for effect (cynical genius) and taken it at face value, whereas a more accurate (but less catchy) term would be "individual who isn't invested, but has the intellect and ability to make it appear that way to those who matter."

Secondly, you've slightly straw manned. I didn't advocate employing "gamers" or, again, for the sake of clarity "awkward, antisocial, slightly malodorous" but I disagreed with Kirby's assertion of attitude over skills/experience.

Again, give me talented individuals who don't give a gak over the equivalent of dogs with their heads out of the collective car window all day, every day.

Of course, an enthusiastic genius would be best, but they tend to be rare in minimum wage, thankless, high pressure retail sales jobs, and transient when they do pop up.

My bad any time I hear the word cynical I think it means bitterly sneering, distrustful, sarcastic, mocking, contemptuous, or pessimistic. Sorry but if I received customer service from someone who is a genius at it I would be irritated.

As almost everyone will tell you when you find a job you like it doesn't become just work. I have worked some crappy jobs in my life, having the right attitude will take you farther than raw talent. Some raw talent is necessary but after a certain point, you will find that your career progression is determined based on how much people like to work with you rather than the sheer amount of knowledge you possess. Not everyone likes working with the SNL Company Computer guy who would be an extreme version of a cynical genius.

 azreal13 wrote:


See, what you've gone and done there is make an error on two points. Firstly, you've taken my exaggeration for effect (cynical genius) and taken it at face value, whereas a more accurate (but less catchy) term would be "individual who isn't invested, but has the intellect and ability to make it appear that way to those who matter."

Secondly, you've slightly straw manned. I didn't advocate employing "gamers" or, again, for the sake of clarity "awkward, antisocial, slightly malodorous" but I disagreed with Kirby's assertion of attitude over skills/experience.

Again, give me talented individuals who don't give a gak over the equivalent of dogs with their heads out of the collective car window all day, every day.

Of course, an enthusiastic genius would be best, but they tend to be rare in minimum wage, thankless, high pressure retail sales jobs, and transient when they do pop up.

My bad there then. Misunderstanding. I think we actually agree on who GW should employ in the stores. I think I just associated cynical with gamer. Whoops.

We do still disagree on the attitude portion, but that's okay. Silent25 said it pretty well just above me; that's pretty much my perspective.

@Kroot and anyone else concerned about how many shares Kirby has:
He SHOULD be one of the largest shareholders as CEO. The CEO of any successful public company should be one of the largest shareholders.

@Cincy, You are correct. I think the point he's trying to make is: GW always likes to show they push for dividends and in the past they've shown a willingness to take on debt to push that dividend.

To me, it shows a slight conflict of interest, lining ones pockets at the expense of the company. In that top ten are Kirby and Jervis etc.. right?

edit for grammar

 Kroothawk wrote:
Some more tidbits from the report:

Tom Kirby owns 2,106,009 shares, he granted himself a dividend of £ 1,221,485 (in addition to his salary of £ 352,000 totalling £ 1,573485). He is not included in the official list of the top 7 shareholders, although he would have been fourth. But:"None of the directors had a material interest in any contract of significance to which the Company, or any of its subsidiaries, was a party during the year."

The annual report acknowledges (because it has to) that GW is breaking the UK Corporate Governance Code 2010 in several ways.
- Chairman and CEO are the same person.
- The so called independent directors both serve for more than 9 years, which conflicts with the guidelines for independence.

But the board decided, that this is okay. And that they will tell, when they become not independent anymore

I am not an expert when it comes to UK statutory requirements but looking at the September 2012 Code (http://www.frc.org.uk/Our-Work/Publications/Corporate-Governance/UK-Corporate-Governance-Code-September-2012.aspx), it says the Company must comply or explain. The fact they explain means they are not breaking anything. Also, these don't appear to be statutory because they are more or less principles or the best practice and why. I know the US has the SEC and SOX that dictates who can serve as a board member, defines independence, and notes the penalty of noncompliance. Before you can publish anything to EDGARS you have to make sure you've filled out the 200+ page disclosure checklist of which most are statutory requirements (US GAAP) telling you how data should be presented so someone who doesn't have a financial background understands the report.

 Warboss Gubbinz wrote:
@Cincy, You are correct. I think the point he's trying to make is: GW always likes to show they push for dividends and in the past they've shown a willingness to take on debt to push that dividend.

To me, it shows a slight conflict of interest, lining ones pockets at the expense of the company. In that top ten are Kirby and Jervis etc.. right?

edit for grammar

Looks like Kirby is the largest individual shareholder at 6.7%. The rest of the interests that hold more than 3% are investment firms and funds. Jervis must own less than 3%

cyn·ic

/ˈsinik/

Noun

1.A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.
2.A person who questions whether something will happen or is worthwhile.

A cynic is often seen as pessimistic, when generally it's more about being realistic in my experience. You can be cynical and a hell of a nice person, it just means you tend to be fairly logical and know that although optimism may help it doesn't re-grow limbs or make sales quotas out of thin air. For example, asking one's self how they're going to make a goal is more productive than just simply "believing" in themselves ect. A cynic is also really quick to understand that when it comes to sales honor is in the dollar and all the PR bullgak and mission statements are simply there to indoctrinate the well meaning yes men types.