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 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The sky isn't falling, but there are some ominous creaking noises from the vaults of heaven.

GW currently have £17.55 million cash in the bank to spend against actual losses, so they could survive for several years.

Off by £6.3 million or so unless I am missing something on their balance sheet. The 20 pence dividend was paid out following the close of FY2014. The cash was still on hand at the close so it still is counted...granted as soon as the accounts were run, they had to cut the checks for the shareholders.

That would mean:

2010 - £17.1
2011 - £17.57
2012 - £17.36
2013 - £13.93
2014 - £11.25

Might just be me...but that does seem to be going in the wrong direction. Granted, I haven't had a chance to actually look over the report...so they might have declared it as dividends owed to investors further up the balance sheet, but I would suspect that in order to keep things looking rosy...they didn't.

Otherwise, that would be an interesting trick to have a drop in profits but an increase in cash reserves (with the noted one time restructuring expenses and website launch...and a dividend which, while lower is not that much lower than the previous year...).

Where are you seeing that? Note 9 and the balance sheet show £17,550,000. Per their income statement, they didn't declare dividends in FY14 either. They match their dividends to the period they were declared they were paid in FY14 but declared as part of FY13. If you're having trouble following their cash outflows, look at the statement of cash flow and note 8 (operating activities for the statement of cash flows).

I find the cash flow statement to be the second most important statement next to the P&L. When you watch a company with a net loss it's very important to see this statement. In GW's case they are still seeing both positive cash flow and positive earnings. Might not be meeting expectations, but its still not losing money.

does my eyes and my calculator deceive me or has Games Workshop recorded a sales loss of 4.036 million pounds in the 12 months to the 1st June 2014.

But a operating profit of 557,000 pounds meaning that GW had to gut over 4.6 million pounds from the Australian Operations just to post profit.

Also I noticed that GW has had another disaster year of 9.4% the 10th straight year of negative sales.

 Bullockist wrote:
Mohammed Kirby derpa derpa!!

Another line that works perfectly with your avatar ; p

 xXWeaponPrimeXx wrote:
Does anyone else think that if the CEO is "stepping down" as he put it, that it could mean good things if someone with a lick of sense takes his place?

Well look at GW before Kirby stepped in as CEO. Yearly price hikes. He left, and now we have New Release price hikes. Who knows what the next person. Maybe it could be the Devil you know than the devil you don't know. Most likely the new CEO will not know anything about Minis and what GW is and just treat it as a business and most likely we will have more price hikes. So more people will be buying less. CEO will have no clue as to why since they are so high up and separated from what they are actually selling.

 Achaylus72 wrote:
does my eyes and my calculator deceive me or has Games Workshop recorded a sales loss of 4.036 million pounds in the 12 months to the 1st June 2014.

But a operating profit of 557,000 pounds meaning that GW had to gut over 4.6 million pounds from the Australian Operations just to post profit.

Also I noticed that GW has had another disaster year of 9.4% the 10th straight year of negative sales.

Where do you see that? I don't see those numbers on the P&L? I see the additional expense of shutting down operations of £4.5 million but that is an additional cost not a savings. Where do you see the operating profit of £0.557 million? Which statement, footnote, or is it in the MD&A?

I see the sales decline though.

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

Dreadfleet 4: Dread in the Water

Dreadfleet 5: Dread on Arrival.

I, however, am not sorry.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

Dreadfleet 4: Dread in the Water

Dreadfleet 5: Dread on Arrival.

I, however, am not sorry.

you sir, have a pass, as you use captain Picard as your avatar.

long may kirby dwell in the darkened corners of Dreadd 6

boyd wrote:


Where are you seeing that? Note 9 and the balance sheet show £17,550,000. Per their income statement, they didn't declare dividends in FY14 either. They match their dividends to the period they were declared they were paid in FY14 but declared as part of FY13. If you're having trouble following their cash outflows, look at the statement of cash flow and note 8 (operating activities for the statement of cash flows).

The cash accounts are based off prior years.

Page 2 says no dividend declared in FY2014.

The chart on page 6 shows a dividend.

Page 8 confirms the dividend paid of 16 pence per share (several months back it was stated as well on the investors site...forget the month).

Page 11 gives the information on the 20 pence dividend being paid out after the balance sheet date.

Page 36 enumerates the dividends paid in FY 2014 - only the 16 pence dividend shows up.

Page 39 notes what you have said (in terms of dividends being counted in the year they are declared...).

Page 47 Further confirms page 36 and 11.

Just saying...it looks a bit off to me. Things don't add up, when you add them up.

 TheKbob wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

Dreadfleet 4: Dread in the Water

Dreadfleet 5: Dread on Arrival.

I, however, am not sorry.

Dreadfleet 6: Dread man walking

Lol @ the whole "they're all out to get me!" preamble

So much of this Kirby-speak makes sense...from the perspective of someone who doesn't understand (or doesn't care to understand) what happens at a game company.


"Attitude is more important than skills." I'm fairly sure that if you take two people in the industry (game designers, model makers, etc), if both of them are skilled, and one has a better, more co-operative attitude, then the guy who is easier to work with will work out better. If you don't understand or appreciate the importance of a skilled designer, then you will think that the attitude is what is making him successful, and just look for people with the 'get along' attitude. So you end up with game designers who either have little skill, but can smile and nod, or people who do have skill, but need the job, so smile and nod.

"Our niche is people who want to collect our miniatures." True enough. That's largely because your prices have alienated the people who want to play with your miniatures, sending them to companies with more affordable toys. Your game design has alienated people who want to play your game, sending them to more accessible, better designed systems. You've eliminated all your customers except the few of us who still want to play and own Warhammer models. That's not a feather in your cap, but you clearly think it is.

"We don't do market research. We don't try to find out what the market wants." Companies who can innovate can accomplish the second, even though they do the first. You can produce things the market didn't even know it wanted. That's a high bar, but it's possible. It's not possible for a company who doesn't do market research. There's no way for you to discover untapped demand, or unmet needs, when you don't even do market research.

It's also possible to dilute a brand identity by catering entirely to market research, and becoming a bland non-entity. GW is not doing this. They are doing the exact opposite. They are killing their own sales by insisting on branding everything 'Warhammer'. They have in house modeling and casting, but they make scenery and terrain that is exclusively designed for Warhammer. WHY? When you can (arguably) undercut the opposition in every facet of production, why insist on exclusivity? What would be wrong with selling fantasy buildings for any fantasy game, or tables for any tabletop game, or sci-fi scenery for any sci-fi game? If you couldn't compete with other manufacturers, then it would make sense to focus intensely on your niche. But when you invest your money and time to be competitive, why handicap yourself?

Hopefully all this bad news might finally encourage someone to speak truth to those in power at GW. I still think that they have a lot of people who have huge amounts of skill, talent, and love for the company and the 'Warhammer' identity working there (I imagine them persevering, hoping for a ray of sunshine). Maybe at some point this terrible management will relent and more of those people with a love for the company can work more freely.

 MrFlutterPie wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

Dreadfleet 4: Dread in the Water

Dreadfleet 5: Dread on Arrival.

I, however, am not sorry.

Dreadfleet 6: Dread man walking

Dreadfleet 7: Dread End ??

 Dinamarth wrote:

 MrFlutterPie wrote:

 TheKbob wrote:

 Tanakosyke22 wrote:

A Town Called Malus wrote:Coming soon, Dreadfleet 2: Dread Harder.

Dreadfleet 3: The Dreading Boogaloo.


Okay, I am sorry.

Dreadfleet 4: Dread in the Water

Dreadfleet 5: Dread on Arrival.

I, however, am not sorry.

Dreadfleet 6: Dread man walking

Dreadfleet 7: Dread End ??

Dreadfleet 8: The Dreaded Reawakening, Reload, and rehashed

Dreadfleet 9: Dreadlock Paradise (we own that we never heard of 10cc)

All that talk about what GW should do is nice and all but they said themselves that they do no market research, so i wonder what "solution" they will come up with to fix it.

Even more releases?

Dreadfleet 10: Dread Men Tell No Tales

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Dreadfleet 9: Dreadlock Paradise (we own that we never heard of 10cc)

All that talk about what GW should do is nice and all but they said themselves that they do no market research, so i wonder what "solution" they will come up with to fix it.

Even more releases?

They can very much pull out of this spiral. But the fact that they are proudly ignorant of their own customer base shows that they won't because they can't be bothered to find out how. They probably have no idea how sick the community is or how people perceive the company and their product. They're less like Microsoft and more like EA.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Dreadfleet 10: Dread Men Tell No Tales

Dreadfleet 11: The Good and the Dread

Dreadfleet 12: Dread Horse

Dreadfleet - the next one to make that lame joke again gets a warning?

Seriously - on topic!

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

boyd wrote:


Where are you seeing that? Note 9 and the balance sheet show £17,550,000. Per their income statement, they didn't declare dividends in FY14 either. They match their dividends to the period they were declared they were paid in FY14 but declared as part of FY13. If you're having trouble following their cash outflows, look at the statement of cash flow and note 8 (operating activities for the statement of cash flows).

The cash accounts are based off prior years.

Page 2 says no dividend declared in FY2014.

The chart on page 6 shows a dividend.

Page 8 confirms the dividend paid of 16 pence per share (several months back it was stated as well on the investors site...forget the month).

Page 11 gives the information on the 20 pence dividend being paid out after the balance sheet date.

Page 36 enumerates the dividends paid in FY 2014 - only the 16 pence dividend shows up.

Page 39 notes what you have said (in terms of dividends being counted in the year they are declared...).

Page 47 Further confirms page 36 and 11.

Just saying...it looks a bit off to me. Things don't add up, when you add them up.

the latest dividend wasn't issued until after the end of the fiscal year and wouldn't appear on the annual report. It will appear on the next one.

The one thing that I take from the whole report is...
It's not looking great but hey, at least we have enough cash!

 Alpharius wrote:
Dreadfleet - the next one to make that lame joke again gets a warning?

Seriously - on topic!

Aww! Knee Deep in the Dread was the next joke, but ok.

Da Butcha - More than just making scenery, why doesn't GW try to sell its manufacturing capability via the Citadel moniker? Let some Kickstarter take the development risk, GW just profits from manufacturing the models. This diversifies revenue stream and, more importantly, prevents competitor manufacturing from appearing.

Re Turning GW around: the current leadership shows no sign of knowing about GW's position in the market. Any turn-around will be an expensive multi-year deal and requires some capital margin to keep on operating during that period. GW may already be at a point where it can't cut the costs of its goods, as the potential volume gained is too little.

For example, wouldn't it have made sense for GW to try to cross market Dawn of War and a WH40K starter set? Each DoW game comes with a 10% coupon for the 40K starter set? (Enough of a discount that it is attractive, but still allows GW to sell the starter set at a solid margin.)

The 40K IP is incredibly strong, it takes a company of quite staggering incompetence to blow away its advantage. Yet, the inability to get massive sales on Space Marines and 7th Edition indicates that GW is in deep trouble.

DrRansom wrote:
Da Butcha - More than just making scenery, why doesn't GW try to sell its manufacturing capability via the Citadel moniker? Let some Kickstarter take the development risk, GW just profits from manufacturing the models. This diversifies revenue stream and, more importantly, prevents competitor manufacturing from appearing.

I would assume this is because they're at capacity with their own stuff. I recall reading a comment that they don't put everything in plastic mostly because they just don't have the manufacturing time. This is why we still get the odd finecast unit - there was no capacity to even do a plastic kit.

If they don't have capacity for the stuff even they want to do, they're not going to have capacity to to production for others.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Dreadfleet - the next one to make that lame joke again gets a warning?

Seriously - on topic!

Aww! Knee Deep in the Dread was the next joke, but ok.

Bigger badder Dreader.

It just seams to me that the more money they put in the less return they are seeing, as they just add more and more stuff to one system. You know in the old days they would update 40K a bit, then move on to fantasy, then move on to epic all the while bringing other new projects and games to market.

It kept you from getting burnt out on one system, now it just seams they release stuff to release it. The game is constantly being updated, well added on to might be the better term.

There is just entirely too much focus on 40k, I can't even wrap my head around all the new products and add ons. I don't really feel like I know the game anymore.

You used to see it in the club, we had a 40k season, then a fantasy season, an epic season and a bloodbowl season.

I really think they need to let 40k settledown a bit and diversify.

 Idolator wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

boyd wrote:


Where are you seeing that? Note 9 and the balance sheet show £17,550,000. Per their income statement, they didn't declare dividends in FY14 either. They match their dividends to the period they were declared they were paid in FY14 but declared as part of FY13. If you're having trouble following their cash outflows, look at the statement of cash flow and note 8 (operating activities for the statement of cash flows).

The cash accounts are based off prior years.

Page 2 says no dividend declared in FY2014.

The chart on page 6 shows a dividend.

Page 8 confirms the dividend paid of 16 pence per share (several months back it was stated as well on the investors site...forget the month).

Page 11 gives the information on the 20 pence dividend being paid out after the balance sheet date.

Page 36 enumerates the dividends paid in FY 2014 - only the 16 pence dividend shows up.

Page 39 notes what you have said (in terms of dividends being counted in the year they are declared...).

Page 47 Further confirms page 36 and 11.

Just saying...it looks a bit off to me. Things don't add up, when you add them up.

the latest dividend wasn't issued until after the end of the fiscal year and wouldn't appear on the annual report. It will appear on the next one.

Which is what I said (more or less). The cash on hand of 17 million got reduced by 6 million right after they closed the books for FY2014. It is a bit odd though that they say none was paid though (when one was paid) and later say one was paid. Prior years have actually recorded the dividend owing on the balance sheet when one gets declared but is not paid before the time of the report. This year they did not. Goes to make the books look a bit better.

Next year, they might restate the numbers to move the dividend back into FY2014 and lower the cash on hand in order to make the FY2015 cash on hand look better (all legal - if a bit creative book keeping practices as far as I know).

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Dreadfleet - the next one to make that lame joke again gets a warning?

Seriously - on topic!

Aww! Knee Deep in the Dread was the next joke, but ok.

Bigger badder Dreader.

It just seams to me that the more money they put in the less return they are seeing, as they just add more and more stuff to one system. You know in the old days they would update 40K a bit, then move on to fantasy, then move on to epic all the while bringing other new projects and games to market.

There is just entirely too much focus on 40k, I can't even wrap my head around all the new products and add ons. I don't really feel like I know the game anymore.

You used to see it in the club, we had a 40k season, then a fantasy season, an epic season and a bloodbowl season.

I really think they need to let 40k settledown a bit and diversify.

They're all into one concept and one desgin and one facet of their business to drive this gravy train into the ground.

A company with no tricks left up their sleeve other than to speed out production of material, cut costs across the board, and raise prices pretty much as done all it can to maximize profits. Once they decline again in sales, they'll have to start making cuts too close to home, such as nuking their storefronts, or shaving cost in manufacturing.

At some point GW will not be able to justify cuts as any more cuts will undermine their entire business model and their one sole focus area in 40k will not save them one iota.

I guess this explains why Fantasy has been . . . neglected lately.

I play 40K, just as a disclaimer.

I like how they finally addressed 3D printing. Not really sure how to interpret their statements, though. A mix of fear and potential $$.

 -Loki- wrote:

DrRansom wrote:
Da Butcha - More than just making scenery, why doesn't GW try to sell its manufacturing capability via the Citadel moniker? Let some Kickstarter take the development risk, GW just profits from manufacturing the models. This diversifies revenue stream and, more importantly, prevents competitor manufacturing from appearing.

I would assume this is because they're at capacity with their own stuff. I recall reading a comment that they don't put everything in plastic mostly because they just don't have the manufacturing time. This is why we still get the odd finecast unit - there was no capacity to even do a plastic kit.

If they don't have capacity for the stuff even they want to do, they're not going to have capacity to to production for others.

Even more likely to be true since they removed the limited capacity they once had in Memphis...

GW's supply chain is still FUBAR, and although they can talk it up to being great news to have everything centralized in England - it is the source of so very many of the issues they have been having in the past 6 months with keeping stock available overseas (and to some extent even in Europe). With the drop in...well everything...it should be quite clear now that the supply issues were not the result of things selling out so fast because of high demand rather as a result of a supply chain that is broken.