Quote from: The Traveller;725364Does anyone know who are the major shareholders and investors in GW, and what kinds of stocks they own?

http://investor.games-workshop.com/shareholder-statistics/

Shareholder    Number of shares    Percentage

The Nomad Investment Partnership LP    3,131,194    9.8
Investec Asset Management Limited    3,087,765    9.7
Ruffer LLP    2,492,260    7.8
Tom Kirby    2,131,394    6.7
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Limited    1,865,218    5.9
FIL Limited    1,753,900    5.5
Legal and General Group plc    1,683,901    5.3
Schroders plc    1,677,861    5.3
Artemis Investment Management LLP    1,620,001    5.1

 

Information correct at 20 January 2014


Besides a Tom Kirby, the other large shareholders appear to be institutional investors or funds.

Quote from: tanstaafl48;725341Without defending GW (I stopped 40k a long time ago due to cost reasons) a lot of these articles seem like they really want the company to be failing. To the point where they're only seeing information that confirms that conclusion.

I think that's the gist of what I've been reading... a slew of anti-GW rumors coming out of Germany and many ex-players ready to toast wienies and dance around the fire.
There seems to be some vapid hope that GW will see the error of its ways and return to the fun little game company it was in the late 80s.

Quote from: Simlasa;725412There seems to be some vapid hope that GW will see the error of its ways and return to the fun little game company it was in the late 80s.

That's gamers for you.  If a company is small, people jeer because they can't be Major Players.  If a company is big, people jeer because they're Corporate Sellouts.

For my part, what I look for in a game is whether it's a good game or not.  I don't give a tinker's damn about the market capitalization of the publishers.  A good game's a good game no matter how much the company makes.  A bad game's a bad game no matter how much the company makes.

That being said, a stock dropping 24% in a day's trading means bupkis.  Stocks are volatile -- they go up and down all the time.  What's the six-month trend?  What's the five-year trend?  Those are the important metrics.

Honestly, Ive been frequenting online forums since the turn of the century and Ive never seen a gamer jeer at a small company because it can't be a "major player".

If I saw that Id be seriously tempted to make use of an ignore list.

With that said , Games Workshop's actions a far above and beyond "corporate sellout". Theyve been racking up a Karmic debt that makes post-Gary TSR look like Hands Across America.

Quote from: Ravenswing;725439That being said, a stock dropping 24% in a day's trading means bupkis.  Stocks are volatile -- they go up and down all the time.  What's the six-month trend?  What's the five-year trend?  Those are the important metrics.

100% agree that the stock value themselves aren't too interesting. What I find fascinating is the breakdown offered at Bell of Lost Souls (as linked in the other thread), and in particular these facts:

- Both profit and revenue are down, and profit is down a LOT - about 30%.
- That trend's been bucked by revenue coming in from licences - which presumably mostly becomes profit, since licensees take on most-to-all of the manufacturing costs and from GW's side the main cost is having someone review licensed works for approval and having the lawyers and accountants regularly check up to make sure everything's going smoothly. In fact, revenue from licences has DOUBLED since 2012.

Although there's structural reasons why profits may be down (in particular, a shift in their store strategy), equally they had a Space Marine release in the last 6 months which should have bolstered their revenue. So it's hard to look at that and not come to the conclusion that the core wargames/minis part of the business is woefully underperforming, and its issues have nothing to do with the strength of the IP itself (which is thriving as far as licensed properties go).

To be honest, I can believe that. I stopped paying attention to the wargame about 5 years ago, which was very soon after the latest editions of WFB and WH40K came out and there's been two Fantasy editions and one 40K edition since (and rumours of a new 40K edition on the horizon). I think their core teen wargamer market is finally reaching the point where they're getting savvy to the fact that a) there are alternatives out there, b) the alternatives are more affordable when you've got a teenager's disposable income, and c) anything you currently like about the wargame is subject to change thanks to GW's "grab the customer, squeeze the customer, discard the customer" policy when it comes to those core lines.

It'd be interesting to see if the trend continues. I do wonder whether, if the wargame keeps underperforming to this extent, that GW will start diversifying its stores again, at least to the extent of giving shelf space to products from licensees. It's too soon to say that the core wargames are in an irreversible downward spiral, but equally I'm sure at least some people in head office are giving serious thought to the question of whether the limit of the edition churn business model has been reached and what the company will need to do if it can't count on its core products any more.