Sunday, August 5, 2012

Its All About the Money


Games Workshop had a good year. Profits were up, and overall it looks like our beloved hobby will continue with some financial strength for quite some time. While this is a little bit old now, I thought it was worth mentioning.


This link was no longer working last time I checked, but was working at the time the pdf was available.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Preliminary-announcement-2012-final.pdf


Highlights via reds8n
 Revenue 
- Revenue at £131.0m (2011: £123.1m) 
- Revenue at constant currency* at £130.8m (2011: £123.1m) 
 Profit 
- Operating profit pre-royalties receivable at £15.6m (2011: £12.8m) 
- Operating profit at £19.1m (2011: £15.2m) 
- Pre-tax profit at £19.5m (2011: £15.3m) 
 Earnings per share of 46.8p (2011: 36.0p) 
 Cash generated from operations of £28.0m (2011: £25.8m) 
 Dividends per share declared in the year of 63p (2011: 45p) 
Mark Wells, CEO of Games Workshop, said: 
“Games Workshop has had a good year. We have launched some great new products 
including the new Citadel paint range. We have made good progress on all our major 
initiatives. This has resulted in an encouraging level of volume growth. We have a strong 
management team and excellent staff who are committed to delivering a healthy return on 
capital. We have honoured our commitment to distribute genuinely surplus cash to our 
shareholders.


To give you an idea of how well the new Citadel paints were received by Hobbyists, the launch 
generated £2.75 million sales of paint in April alone. Of the 2.3 million pots that were dispatched from 
Lenton, some 2 million have already been sold. In sales to independent stockists all of the initial batch 
of 1,600 display racks sold through and we have had to order a further 600 racks to satisfy demand. 
We put a Direct bundle deal on our web store of the complete set of 145 paints priced at £333 and all 
1,000 bundles sold out within a few days. 


Our manufacturing and supply chain coped very well with the demand for the new Citadel paint range. 
By consolidating the bottling and filling operation in Lenton and by having a high quality paint supplier 
based in the UK, quality issues have been less than 0.01% and we have delivered a 15% reduction in 
cost per unit. 
In addition, having all production based in the UK, we have been able to deliver a 99% in stock service 
level for retail. This in spite of the fact that we had to re-order some of the paint colours because we 
sold through three months‟ worth of stock in three weeks. These re-orders were in the warehouse 
within 48 hours. 
Following the launch, we have seen core games sales increase in many territories, which suggests 
that we have been able to use this launch to improve our recruitment activity. The high take up of the 
full size paint racks in sales to independent stockists suggests that the new paint range will be selling 
well throughout the year in those accounts. We have also ensured that each of the paints has a 
trademark protected name to prevent anyone else from mimicking our colour palette. 
All in all, a great example of the power of our vertically integrated niche business model.


New products 
For those of you who are Games Workshop Hobbyists, our new products pipeline is probably what 
interests you most. Sadly this is not something that I can say too much about: keeping details of our 
future releases secret until just before they are available to buy adds to the excitement and success of 
each launch. In the last 12 months we have narrowed the disclosure window to the weekend before 
release and sales of new products - and of White Dwarf which showcases the new products - have 
been significantly higher as a result.

don't see the rumour situation changing anytime soon then.
...Course there's 3 Hobbit films now too of course.


What I can say is that we will release some amazing products this year. Products that will surprise and 
delight Hobbyists. We plan to do so every month, including December 2012 when we will release our 
new Hobbit range to coincide with the film. And... ahh, but that would spoil the surprise. You will just 
have to wait and see. You will not be disappointed.