Actually, if you read the half-year report, you will see that that is not entirely correct.It isn't that bad when you look at it, the drop in Profit is about £4m, which is identical to the drop in royalties, in fact discounting royalties from 2012 to 2013 figures they are actually up £.6m on the previous year.
Royalties are up 0.6 million compared to 2012 and operating profit is even down a little more than what the consolidated numbers show.
Please remember, that the reported numbers are compared to the half-year report until December 2012 and the whole Royalty issue with DOW and the likes was already done by then. But I agree, royalties are insignificant at the current level regardless.
The real bad numbers are these:
Sales are down by 12% - inspite of some really 'busy' sales campaigns, new White Dwarf and the like.
What's even worse is that Profits are down 30%! And Tom Kirby can claim that he is in control of his costs all day long - once sales are going down, he's in for a bad time.
This weekend I'll summarize some of the rumors I heard in advance of the big 'black-shirt' meeting in Nottingham which will take place in February. You will likely see more hectic sales initiatives, a lot of major changes - the one thing you won't find will be a long term strategy.
I got a whole series up on our blog about "The future of Games Days and Games Workshop" (8 1/2 parts by now, most of them terribly, terribly long, epic walls of text) which tries to apply a Chuck Norris roundhouse-kick to everything I personally and subjectively think GW is doing wrong. I have been a nerd about as long as I have been part of top international management (before I turned a full-time nerd for good!) so I think I am not entirely wrong about what I write
[URL="http://masterminis.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-future-of-games-days-games-workshop.html"]Part 1 of this epic series starts here.[/URL] There is a link to the respective next part at the end of each of these posts. I'd be interested to hear what you think. But beware: Reading all of the posts will probably take you a few hours. Perfect for a busy office day
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