Gee Dub yearly financials and annual statement

[Gaz Taylor]

5 hours ago, mhsellwood said:

What I would like to see though is for GW senior management to take these profits and actually invest them back into the company and their product lines rather than hand back cash to shareholders.

Not sure if it was the last report but they have stated that this is something that they are doing. Cash was invested into the studio for training and equipment and then they were doing a new ERP system. We can see they have done some investment this year already with the Live stuff, so I think it's going to be good.  

[RuneBrush]

GW do invest quite a bit back into the business, but it's done prior to profits being drawn up.  I seem to recall from somewhere that one of the reasons why one statement looked poor was because they'd pretty much invested everything into plastic mold making equipment

[shinros]

32 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

GW do invest quite a bit back into the business, but it's done prior to profits being drawn up.  I seem to recall from somewhere that one of the reasons why one statement looked poor was because they'd pretty much invested everything into plastic mold making equipment

Yup and they did it to make "bigger" and better looking models *looks at the everqueen and magnus*

[daedalus81]

11 hours ago, mhsellwood said:

What I would like to see though is for GW senior management to take these profits and actually invest them back into the company and their product lines rather than hand back cash to shareholders.

The only money that goes to shareholders is that which they don't invest.  The statement was very level headed, but there will be a bigger dividend especially now that the share price shot up by about $100.

[Chikout]

Well they are hiring new people for their community team which did not exist a couple of years ago, so that is putting money back in.

[CoffeeGrunt]

38 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Well they are hiring new people for their community team which did not exist a couple of years ago, so that is putting money back in.

In terms of GW's turnover that's not a lot of money invested. A good move, but not an overly-expensive one.

[TerrorPenguin]

People need to stop hating on GW shareholders. The idea that every £1 given to them is somehow diverted from the nobler cause of being invested in the game is ludicrous. It's a business not a social enterprise. 

Larger dividends create more incentive to invest which increases the amount of capital the company has leading to greater investment in the game system. 

I appreciate we are coming out of a dark period of GW not communicating and so the narrative the community created was 'evil shareholders took my toys' but in the real world business is slightly more subtle. 

[Arkiham]

Tbh I've been actively looking to purchase gw shares for a little while,  I think I may have missed the opportunity to get them cheap though 

[daedalus81]

3 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

Tbh I've been actively looking to purchase gw shares for a little while,  I think I may have missed the opportunity to get them cheap though 

I had the same regret with the Wii.  I knew it was coming and that'd it'd be a commercial success.  Ahh well.  Time to travel back in time and buy Amazon shares.

[BaldoBeardo]

In terms of GW's turnover that's not a lot of money invested. A good move, but not an overly-expensive one. [emoji4]

Idle curiosity; what sort of investment do you think they need to make?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

[mhsellwood]

On 10/12/2016 at 6:50 AM, TerrorPenguin said:

People need to stop hating on GW shareholders. The idea that every £1 given to them is somehow diverted from the nobler cause of being invested in the game is ludicrous. It's a business not a social enterprise. 

Larger dividends create more incentive to invest which increases the amount of capital the company has leading to greater investment in the game system. 

I appreciate we are coming out of a dark period of GW not communicating and so the narrative the community created was 'evil shareholders took my toys' but in the real world business is slightly more subtle. 

No hate from me that is for sure. Just a recognition that with any business for every dollar you earn you have different organisational stakeholders, each of whom want a slice of the pie and how that is divided up is a strategic / management decision that the board and senior management needs to make.

Additionally larger dividends do create more incentive to invest, but so does growth. Remember that a share represents an ownership right to the assets of the company, so if you increase the amount that this ownership right is worth (through increasing your net asset position) then you make the share worth more which drives increased shareholder wealth and more interest in owning your shares. This is why Amazon shares are worth USD 768 yet they do not pay dividends at all (same with Google, and Apple). 

As you are no doubt aware, the only way to increase the money you have available to invest is through 3 main methods: borrow money, earn money that you do not spend, do a rights issue to sell additional shares to the public (shares being bought and sold outside of a public offering or equivalent delivers no money directly to GW - share trading is arrangements between private individuals with all money exchanged directly between them). GW are in the situation currently where any 3 of these are available but only one is likely to be appealing (borrowing money does reduce your weighted average cost of capital but given their inherent conservatism I doubt it would appeal to management, and an additional rights issue reduces the value of current shareholders holdings which given the fact that members of the executive are shareholders is unlikely to be that attractive). So they have money that they have not spent, which raises the question of what to do?

My thoughts - are there any potential acquisitions they can make to broaden their sales streams? What scope do they have to increase their on site production capacity? Can they outsource some production while retaining quality oversight to increase overall output? (On AoS specifically) Strike while the iron is hot and reinvest into delivering some of the things people are asking for like updating older factions, more terrain, more everything basically.

When reading my wish list, one thing to keep in mind is that I feel like I have been suffering withdrawal for the past six months. I am so pleased with the quality of everything they have done, so looking forwards to more of everything that waiting is an agony. 

[Turragor]

5 hours ago, mhsellwood said:

My thoughts - are there any potential acquisitions they can make to broaden their sales streams? What scope do they have to increase their on site production capacity? Can they outsource some production while retaining quality oversight to increase overall output? (On AoS specifically) Strike while the iron is hot and reinvest into delivering some of the things people are asking for like updating older factions, more terrain, more everything basically.

Two things I find interesting about this is:

1. GW is one of those rare companies that has always produced the whole of the end product at home (Nottingham). It's almost a matter of pride.

2. I don't think they're averse to expanding their operation in the way you describe. I think those new bases (and iirc some earlier terrain - I was away from the hobby for 10 years +) were produced by outsourced means. And they get panned in terms of quality regularly.

[Lucio]

4 hours ago, Turragor said:

Two things I find interesting about this is:

1. GW is one of those rare companies that has always produced the whole of the end product at home (Nottingham). It's almost a matter of pride.

2. I don't think they're averse to expanding their operation in the way you describe. I think those new bases (and iirc some earlier terrain - I was away from the hobby for 10 years +) were produced by outsourced means. And they get panned in terms of quality regularly.

Funnily enough, they've been producing in China for about 18 months now, to become cost effective on terrain kits and the bases. If you look closely, the boxes will often say "Made in China".

All in all, it's a good plan, because it keeps the products that require the high quality detail here in the UK but outsource the bulk products

[Ollie Grimwood]

The boxes and books are printed in China. 

They did have a factory producing some of the Forge World stuff but it closed a while back. 

[Darth Alec]

GW has tried outsourcing both model production and paints to china. The plastic was terrible and the paint dangerous. So that's not likely to happen again.

 

GW might consider purchasing other companies, but I doubt it. GW likes being GW. If it's not Warhammer, then they aren't interested. And they already have a stake in every other part of the miniature gaming hobby.

 

What they really need is to expand their player base. Every single hobbyist recruited will be a huge benefit. Unlike companies who buy figures from three different companies, paints from two others, terrain from somewhere else etc, GW-hobbyists recruited through GW stores are likely to spend their entire hobby budget on GW products. So I feel that the best source of growth for GW is through recruiting new players, and some efforts to convince older ones.

[Ollie Grimwood]

I agree, I think we may see more investment back into their retail chain for that very purpose.  They've spent a number of years trimming the fat when it come to their shops I think we may see some expansion, may be a few more of the flagship style stores or ones that are larger gaming venues. 

All be it a little more controlled than it was in the early noughties

[AGPO]

The next logical step is steadily reversing the decision to go to one man stores. There's a reason that the multi-member stores like Glasgow regularly top internal performance measures - is a lot easier to build a community when you can dedicate a staff member to running the kids intro programme. Heck,  I'm pretty sure my parents only funded my warhammer habit as a kid because it was cheaper than an actual holiday club.

As for AOSing 40k I'm all for it rules wise. I returned to the playing side of the hobby with AOS because the barriers to entry were so low compared to WFB or 40k. No need for a rulebook, codex, codex supplement and campaign book to play with your existing minis. in terms of advancing the fluff, I think they'd do well to grow outwards rather than moving the 1 minute to midnight to be 30 seconds. The trouble with basing everything around the first founding chapters, traitor legions etc is any major upheaval means wiping out a faction. imagine the nerd rage if Space Wolves or Blood Angels were to lose at the end of their campaign books and people's armies were now redundant.

[Ollie Grimwood]

In the UK I reckon they could have a sort of Warhammer World South, a large gamming venue in the London area, it doesn't need to quite the WHW  (and it wouldn't have the museum) level but they would be able to get a decent turnout for events and the like 

[Darth Alec]

1 hour ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

In the UK I reckon they could have a sort of Warhammer World South, a large gamming venue in the London area, it doesn't need to quite the WHW  (and it wouldn't have the museum) level but they would be able to get a decent turnout for events and the like 

The cost of a WHW-sized locale in the London area probably eclipses GW's actual value. Other than that though, it would be a cool idea.

 

I think GW will get more bang for their buck by actively promoting independent events. You can do a lot of promotion and support for the cost of a new gaming center. And cover a lot more ground.

[Ollie Grimwood]

11 minutes ago, Darth Alec said:

The cost of a WHW-sized locale in the London area probably eclipses GW's actual value. Other than that though, it would be a cool idea.

 

I think GW will get more bang for their buck by actively promoting independent events. You can do a lot of promotion and support for the cost of a new gaming center. And cover a lot more ground.

You're probably right ''tis pricey  round there. Given what they did at Blood and Glory I think we'll be seeing more of them at independent events. 

[AGPO]

Nottingham is pretty easily accessed from the South, and as has been said the cost of putting something like that in London would be astronomical. For me stepping up their efforts to have larger stores in major cities such as Manchester,  Leeds and Bristol would be a better call.

[Ollie Grimwood]

It wouldn't necessarily have to be in London just the general sort of area. I find Nottingham is too far for a one dayer from the South which certainly restricts it to a bit of a special occasion visit. 

Still I do agree a larger presence in the other cities is a good idea.  In fact it is similar in concept providing more easily access hobbying venues that provide more than the small one person stores. 

[CoffeeGrunt]

Something similar to the old "Battle Bunker" they had would be cool. A large gaming space, basically.

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

It wouldn't necessarily have to be in London just the general sort of area. I find Nottingham is too far for a one dayer from the South which certainly restricts it to a bit of a special occasion visit. 

Completely agree on this.  I use the train and it's a 4-hour and £75 return journey - not possible for a short event at all.  A venue Reading/Oxford way would be more central for the South and provide coverage for South Wales too.

[MongooseMatt]

On 12/12/2016 at 0:44 PM, Ollie Grimwood said:

The boxes and books are printed in China. 

And dice - they are made at the same factory as our Paranoia game