Miniature marvels: Games Workshop's shares paint a rosy picture with record highs!
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·???????? Miniature marvels: Games Workshop's shares paint a rosy picture with record highs!
Miniature marvels: Games Workshop's shares paint a rosy picture with record highs!
Shares in Nottingham’s Games Workshop Group (AIM:GAW), the creator, manufacturer and retailer of fantasy games and a long-term constituent of Fundamental’s Global Growth Portfolio, climbed back to all-time highs on a positive (albeit famously very brief) trading update.?
Games Workshop manufactures and sells plastic and resin miniature models, paints and tools with which to make those models, and rules with which to play games with those models.
Management helpfully provides this statement near the beginning of each Annual Report:
‘Our ambitions remain clear: to make the best fantasy miniatures in the world, to engage and inspire our customers, and to sell our products globally at a profit. We intend to do this forever. Our decisions are focused on long-term success, not short-term gains.’
In addition to its online store, it sells through approximately 530 of its own physical stores, of which more than a third are now in North America, and also through around 6,000 third-party trade accounts.
The Group’s games involve players controlling multiple models on a board. The Financial Times provided an excellent intro to the concept and appeal of its Warhammer universe in an article here.?
January and February trading has been ahead of expectations, with strong trading across both the core retail business and licensing activities. As a result, the Group's profit before tax for the 12 months to 1 June 2025 is now estimated to be ahead of expectations.
The latest update is not long since the announcement of first half results on 14 January, which showed revenue and profit up 16% and 22% respectively. It is also the fourth trading statement since the last financial year end, three of which have indicated that trading has been ahead of expectations.
Even before the upgrade on the latest news, forecasts for the 2025 financial year were 74% higher than they were a year earlier last year.
The shares climbed 3.3% on the news to ￡142, taking gains over the last 12-months to 51%.
?Investors are still eagerly awaiting details of the licensing partnership with Amazon, which will see development of a TV series based on Warhammer 40,000 (starring Henry Cavill of Superman fame) and the potential to bring the fantasy world of Warhammer to a huge global audience.
Megan Boxall, writing for Stockopedia, commented how the Netflix series The Witcher (which is also based on a game) attracted 83m views in the first 90 days after its release. The year the series came out, sales of the newest version of the video game were up over 500%.
A word of warning at this point - tariffs. Trumps’ tariffs could have a negative impact on revenue if they occur but at this stage it is more of a wait and see situation than anything concrete.
This highly unusual new entrant to the FTSE100 Index, which has all the key attributes we look for in our portfolio companies, continues to deliver, with its valuation now touching ￡4.7 billion!
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