Games Workshop Ownership Changes

[Bigred]

There has been a LOT of big shifting in ownership of Games Workshop in 2013.

Take a look at this:

As of [URL="http://investor.games-workshop.com/shareholder-statistics/"]March 31, 2013 the major shareholders[/URL] look like this:

Shareholder	Number of shares	Percentage
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP	5,154,141	16.2%
Investec Asset Management Ltd	3,087,765	9.7%
[URL="http://www.ruffer.co.uk/"]Ruffer LLP[/URL]	2,557,260	8.1%
Tom Kirby	2,131,394	6.7%
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Ltd.	1,865,218	5.9%
[URL="https://www.fidelityworldwideinvestment.com/global/default.page"]FIL Limited[/URL]	1,753,900	5.5%

And here's what it looked like in early January 2013:

Shareholder	Number of shares	Percentage
The Nomad Investment Partnership LP	5,800,000	18.7%
Investec Asset Management Ltd	5,700,000	18.3%
Phoenix Asset Management Partners Ltd.	2,900,000	9.3%
Tom Kirby	2,131,394	6.7%
[URL="http://www.ruffer.co.uk/"]Ruffer LLP[/URL]	800,000	2.5%
[URL="https://www.fidelityworldwideinvestment.com/global/default.page"]FIL Limited[/URL]	800,000	2.5%

Some notes:

The largest three institutional investors (Nomad, Investec, Phoenix) begin selling off their GW portfolios within 1 week of the announcement of CEO Mark Wells leaving the company.

FIL and in particular Ruffer begin to purchase GW equity at a large rate. Ruffer bought a large set of shares as recently as March 21, 2013, bringing them above the 8% ownership mark.

Games Workshop equity has been fairly locked up and unchanged for a long time prior to 2013.

Thoughts and ideas?

Company about to skyrocket?
Company about to crater?
Company about to get bought?
Business as usual?

[jgebi]

we should all band together and buy games workshop . it's a nice idea but nothing manageable

[lobster-overlord]

Kickstarter a takeover bid by hobbists.

[White Tiger88]

Kickstarter a takeover bid by hobbists.

LOL that would rock.

[jgebi]

some one should try that

[StarWarsDoug]

Nice wish. You only need about ¢4B to take controlling interest. Grab me some unicorns one the way will you...

[jgebi]

seriously 4 bill?

[Magpie]

If you think GW is bad now just imagine what it would be like being run by hobbyists !

[Wolfshade]

If you think GW is bad now just imagine what it would be like being run by hobbyists !

I shudder to think, but it would be a glorious 3 months...

About the share change, I think the reducition in shares is a conservative market showing how insecure it is. The previous CEO had a proven track record of driving business improvement and returned the business to profit after years of decline. Now that he has left the markets are unsure who will take over and what that would mean for the company. So the marktes sell out until the new person is appointed, and if (s)he has a proven track record then investors will return, if (s)he does not then GW will continue to leak share holders until the market has determined if the new person is good/stable or no.

[Denzark]

I make the total shares Bigred published, as 57.7% of total issue in Jan, and 52.1% in Mar. So, where has the remaining 5.6% gone, back to some pot or the minority share holders?