All GW Retail Employees to gain a £5000 Profit-Sharing Bonus

[Kaleb Daark]

Quote

Around 2,500 staff at retailer Games Workshop have landed share bonuses worth £12 million thanks to soaring profits as demand surged among locked-down hobbyists.

The group said each employee will receive £5,000 in shares under its profit-share scheme.

The total share bonus – which will be paid out by the end of this month – marks a £10 million hike on the £2 million awards given to staff the previous year.

Games Workshop said they are handed out to staff on an equal basis.

Its bonus cheer comes as the Warhammer maker said annual pre-tax profits are set to nearly double to at least £150 million, up from £89 million the previous year.

Sales are expected to hit “not less than” £350 million, up 30% on the year before, thanks to fans of its table-top games spending more on its products as they remained stuck at home during coronavirus restrictions.

Games Workshop said the share bonuses have been made “in recognition of our staff’s contribution to these results”.

As well as the staff share awards, Games Workshop also delivered good news to investors as it said it would pay out a 50p-a-share dividend in July, taking its total dividends for the year to 235p-a-share, up from 145p-a-share the previous year.

Games Workshop has been able to offset lockdown store closures by shifting sales online and through wholesale trading.

In its first half, sales through its ecommerce platforms increased by 87.7% to £46 million, while wholesale trade sales increased 33% to £104.9 million.

It revealed in January that pre-tax profits jumped by 56.3% to £91.6 million for the six months to November 29, compared with a year ago.

source:  https://www.standard.co.uk/business/leisure-retail/games-workshop-share-bonus-warhammer-b936280.html

 

I'm happy for them,

£5000 in shares is a massive deal for a retail or in fact any employee - especially if they're given at a preferential rate  per share that's utterly amazing.

The current value of GW stock is 11,470p  ((£1,147) for a preferential share, and if they're getting one of those then they have a proper stake in the business that pays a dividend.

Even if it's an ordinary share, which is currently worth 5p , that will rise and give them a good lump of cash if the staff member ever left and sold his shares back to the company - which is the morm.

 

Well done them

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Kaleb Daark

[Chikout]

Those are absurd numbers from gw. Last year's profit was already a record. They are making more profit now than their total revenue from five years ago. 

I'm glad to see them sharing a bit of that profit around, but it unfortunately shows that their pricing structure isn't going to change any time soon. 

[Kaleb Daark]

10 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Those are absurd numbers from gw. Last year's profit was already a record. They are making more profit now than their total revenue from five years ago. 

I'm glad to see them sharing a bit of that profit around, but it unfortunately shows that their pricing structure isn't going to change any time soon. 

oh god no.  Any business of luxury consumer goods will do the same.  Prices keep going up until sales profits either plateau or tank.

At that point they won't reduce prices as its not good for keeping face.  it's better to freeze them so that inflation does the work of 'cheapening' them for you.

Or you keep perceived brand value high by not discounting but by offering discount in a hidden way - ie things like the Inperial knoghts game with two knights for the price of one etc.

The sisters of battle box, and cursed city and I'm sure countless other boxes to come will all sell out and so that will tell the mothership that nothing has to change as they've got it right.

marketing - "Sir, the natives are restless and complaining about pricing.."

Bean counter  - "Everything has sold out, demand has been unprecedented, so that tells me we don't have to change anything"

marketing - "but the customer base is saying that it's too poor to keep buying the volume they want.. how do we deal with their poverty."

Bean counter  - "We dont have to.  That's their problem.   If they want it bad enough they'll buy it."

 

We the community can rattle on about prices all day long, and how we used to buy three boxes for the price of one now.  But... and here's the but... we'll still go and buy jut one box.  We haven't walked away.  And as far as the mothership is concerned, all the while they're selling, they're doing something right.   It's not up to them to correct anything, it's up to us the community to ask ourselves if we can still afford / want to buy into it.  it's quite a cold truth, but it's hardly going to change.  If anything it reinforces to them that they're doing everything right (as they see it).

[SunStorm]

Glad to see the staff are getting rewarded. For the most part they've done well over the pandemic, including apparently not taking any UK government money for furloughing staff, even with the store closures during the lockdown. 

Hopefully this success means they move more production to the UK, employing more staff and less relying on overseas factories, which as we've seen can cause supply issues. 

 

[Baron Klatz]

They've been trying to do that since 2019 with making a second factory in UK and building more warehouses in both UK & US but then 2020 happened and all news on that stuff went silent(for obvious reasons). So hopefully with the world returning to some sense of normalcy and their fortunes continuing to skyrocket we'll hear of some grand openings eventually. (I like to imagine they cut the entrance ribbon with a replica of Slimux's gardener shears )

But yeah, big cheers to GW and their hard workers getting the fruits from all the hard work they've been putting in for both their products and active community support.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Baron Klatz

[Overread]

GW basically had their new factory and warehouse systems come online during the pandemic so those new systems have yet to really be put to their full capacity. 

Also don't forget after things quieten down sales will most likely dip. Right now they've a lot of people who aren't going out to events or eating out or attending their gym so they've more money floating around. Heck just not commuting saves a fortune for many. Plus a good many old gamers came back because they had nothing else to do whilst locked down at home. So GW has had a phenomenal bump year ontop of a new edition (which whilst messing with things has likely meant that 9th ed 40K has done really really well). 

If I were GW I'd likely not be investing in any new factories right now; the best might be warehousing in the EU to smooth that over; but otherwise a second new factory in the UK would be overkill right now. They don't know what the next year or two will bring and it might well be that sales will dive down after this; or heck perhaps they'll keep growing. They need a few normal years to really answer that question before investing again in a new factory. Then again investing in infrastructure whlist they are on a profit high is also  a smart move since it helps them against future needs to grow. Though right now their smartest move on that front might be just to buy and hold onto land. 

 

GW did also take furlough money; however they paid it all back and have (far as I know) not taken more. One of GW's biggest advantages has always been their refusal to carry debt. It leaves them in a very robust position where they control all their outgoings. IF things turn bad they can scale back their operations. Many other firms can only scale back so far; but will still have big loan and investment repayments that have to go out continually and can't easily be modified. Many a highstreet name has sunk as a result of debts. 

 

 

[Sleboda]

As a shareholder, there is good news in there for me as well. Happy day!

[Cordova]

Given that the last year-and-a-bit has seen tough times and bad news for so many people - especially those in retail - it's great to see some finally getting good news!

[Clan's Cynic]

16 hours ago, Chikout said:

Those are absurd numbers from gw. Last year's profit was already a record. They are making more profit now than their total revenue from five years ago. 

I'm glad to see them sharing a bit of that profit around, but it unfortunately shows that their pricing structure isn't going to change any time soon. 

Also shows the whole "GW need to do this because of Brexit/Covid/production costs/inflation" argument is nonsense.

I won't dismiss the good it does for the staff of course.

[Kaleb Daark]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:52 AM, Clan's Cynic said:

Also shows the whole "GW need to do this because of Brexit/Covid/production costs/inflation" argument is nonsense.

I won't dismiss the good it does for the staff of course.

It's business. 

A quarter of that will go back into the running and development costs costs for next year.

the wages bill alone is probably ten percent if not more.

Also don't forget that if they took furlough or government help, they were legally obligated not to pay shareholder dividend for that financial year, so that was a concious decision to keep shareholders happy and the gamble (which payed off) to demonstrate that you didn't need the hand out and thus actually enhance your stock value as a result  -so it did them a massive favour.

 

Before I was made redundant I worked in a building of 100 people.  That building alone with all the souls in it cost 3 million per annum just to keep the lights on, so I can easily see a company like GW with the infrastructure it has easily burning through 100 - 150m of that 350m without even blinking.

Edited May 24, 2021 by Kaleb Daark
spelling

[Fairbanks]

This isn’t really surprising, they do a really good job of taking care of their employees at all levels.

Most of the price increases are due to them opening more stores, and I think they’ve been extremely strategic on where they get put.