Games Workshop is increasing payouts to investors after another year of huge profits

Games Workshop has declared an 80 cents per share dividend as the retailer continues to see strong trading momentum following a stellar year of returns.

The latest payout brings the Warhammer maker’s dividend payments to 265 pence per share so far this financial year, compared to 195 pence per share at the same time last year.

The Nottingham-based company, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025, said the payouts reflected its policy of handing out ‘genuine excess cash’.

Games Workshop expects to report a total turnover of at least £295 million and a pre-tax profit of no less than £120 million for the six months ending December 1.

Total sales and profits before tax for the same period in 2023 were £248.6m and £13m respectively.

Analysts at broker Peel Hunt said the company had had “a busy few weeks”, with sales of Space Marine surpassing 5 million copies and animated anthology series Secret Level becoming Amazon Prime’s top-rated show.

One of the episodes of Secret Level was based on the video game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

Games Workshop also revealed last week that it had agreed ‘creative guidelines’ with Amazon for adapting Warhammer 40,000 into films and television shows.

Two years ago, the two companies reached an agreement in principle to create productions based on Games Workshop’s intellectual property.

Twelve months later, Games Workshop gave Amazon the rights to develop projects set within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, as well as associated merchandise rights.

It further granted Amazon an option to license equivalent rights in the Warhammer Fantasy universe once the first production Warhammer 40,000 is released.

Games Workshop’s deal with the retail giant comes as the company is set to enter the FTSE 100 Index for the first time following blistering growth.

Under CEO Kevin Rountree’s leadership, the company’s annual revenue has more than quadrupled, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic encouraging more people to play tabletop games.

It has also benefited from the introduction or return of more simplified games, such as the American football-inspired Blood Bowl, where teams of fantasy creatures such as elves, orcs and lizardmen compete to score ‘touchdowns’.

Games Workshop Group Shares were down 0.15 percent on Wednesday morning at 13,530 cents, but are up almost 40 percent since the start of the year – and about 2,600 percent in the past decade.

Peel Hunt said recent strong performance puts Games Workshop shares close to the broker’s price target of 13,500p.

It maintained its ‘buy’ rating but said analysts at the time of Games Workshop’s interim returns would review ‘when we have more clarity’ on Christmas trading.