
Games Workshop cheers record year but faces £12m US tariff hit
The Nottingham-based company jumped into the FTSE 100 last year after growing global trade helped to drive a rise in the firm's value.
Games Workshop saw North American sales rise 14.6% to record levels of £51.7 million for the year to June, as it benefited from more store openings over the year.
However, the company cautioned that it could face higher costs because of new tariff plans from US President Donald Trump's administration.
'Our current estimate is that if we did nothing, new tariffs could impact profit before tax by around £12 million in 2025/26,' the company said.
It said it plans to deal with the issue in its 'normal pragmatic way' and will not change its operational plans 'too much'.
Tariff costs are likely to reduce its gross profit margins by around 2% for the year, but the company said it expects to recoup this through efficiencies.
It came as Games Workshop revealed that revenues lifted by 14.2% to £565 million for the year, amid strong demand for core Warhammer 40,000 products and through its licensed IP.
Meanwhile, pre-tax profits jumped by almost a third to £262.8 million for the year from £203 million a year earlier.
The company opened 30 new stores over the past year and shut eight sites to leave it with a portfolio of 570 stores globally.
Kevin Rountree, chief executive of Games Workshop, said: 'After a record year, we remain focused on delivering our operational plans and working tirelessly to overcome any significant obstacles that get in the way.
'We will continue to give ourselves the freedom to make some mistakes, constantly working on improvements in product quality and manufacturing innovation.
'Despite our recent successes we will never take our hobbyists' support for granted.'
Shares in the company were 5% higher as a result.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mail
10 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Albanese's approach to Trump hailed as 'cool' by ally
Donald Trump has resisted pressure to increase tariffs on Australian goods in a 'vindication' of the federal government's diplomatic efforts, the trade minister says. While many new tariffs unveiled by the US president increase levies on products from America's trading partners, most Australian exports have been spared but will continue to incur a 10 per cent baseline tariff. Some in America had pushed Mr Trump to lift tariffs on Australian goods, but Trade Minister Don Farrell (pictured) said the president resisted the calls. 'There had been some pressure in the American system for an increase, but President Trump had decided to maintain that 10 per cent,' he told reporters in Adelaide on Friday. 'This is a vindication for the Albanese government and particularly the prime minister, in the cool and calm way that we have conducted diplomacy with the United States. This decision by the United States government is a very positive one for our relationship.' There had been speculation that Australian goods would be hit with a higher levy, given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has so far failed to secure a face-to-face meeting with the president and after Mr Trump on Tuesday said he was planning a new tariff 'for the world' in the 15-20 per cent range. Australia will keep pushing for a full exemption from the US tariffs, with Senator Farrell inviting US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to continue discussions. But it's unclear if the government will be successful. No US trading partner has managed to totally dodge the tariffs, and the 10 per cent rate is the lowest most can hope for. 'I'm hopeful that this is the end of the matter now, and that the American government maintains that 10 per cent, and that our producers, our winemakers, can get back to a normal relationship with the United States where we don't have to worry about changes in tariff rates,' Senator Farrell said. The Trump administration has released details of country-specific tariff rates for dozens of nations, hours before the passing of its self-imposed August 1 deadline. New Zealand goods will be subject to a greater 15 per cent tariff, as will exports from Fiji and Papua New Guinea. More punitive rates have been imposed on products from several major US trading partners including Canada and India, with the new tariffs due to come into effect on August 7. In a statement, the White House said tariffs were increased on countries that failed to engage in negotiations with the US or take adequate steps to 'align sufficiently on economic and national security matters'. The Albanese government recently wound back biosecurity restrictions on US beef imports, although ministers insist the move was a coincidence and not in response to the tariffs. The US has complained to Australia about non-tariff trade barriers including longstanding restrictions on beef following a prior outbreak of mad cow disease, and the federal government's decision to lift restrictions on US beef imports was hailed as a victory by Mr Trump.


Telegraph
10 minutes ago
- Telegraph
America will be the chief victim of Trump's tariffs rampage
Donald Trump has succeeded in forcing America's democratic allies to their knees. His country must henceforth live with the invidious consequences of what he has done. 'It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal,' to borrow a line from Henry Kissinger. Vladimir Putin has strung Trump along for six months without paying a price. China has turned the tables, forcing the White House to hand over Nvidia H20 chips in exchange for rare earth magnets that Trump should have thought about before launching his trade war. Didn't the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, say China was playing with a 'pair of twos'? The average US tariff rate will settle near 20pc. This is comparable to the Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930 – but tariffs were already high before that infamous bill and the US was then a closed economy. Imports were just 5pc of GDP. They are 16.4pc today and include critical components that keep the productive machine going. 'We're looking at a shock to the economy seven or eight times as big as Smoot-Hawley,' said Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate for trade theory. Euphoric markets are wishing away the reckless demolition of a global trade system built, led, and painstakingly nurtured by the US for 80 years. 'People just keep wanting to believe that Trump is making sense, that he isn't as ignorant and irresponsible as he seems. But he is,' said Prof Krugman. US economic growth slowed to 1.1pc in the first half of the year. You have to combine the two quarters because tariff 'front-running' distorted the GDP data. The relevant metric is that real final sales are the weakest since 2022. 'We estimate that real personal consumption has now stagnated on net for six months, which rarely happens outside of recession,' said Jan Hatzius, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs. If you think America is booming right now, you are looking a) in the rear view mirror, and b) at the wrong data. The next year will see a drip-drip of accumulating damage as stagflation hits with the textbook delay. Trump's tariffs are a tax on the US consumer. Maury Obstveld, ex-chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says the pass-through from the Trump 1.0 episode was total. 'Not only did the prices of tariffed goods rise, they rose by the full amount of the tariffs. American households and businesses bore the entire burden; none was shifted to foreign exporters,' he said. The well-informed are watching the US bureau of labor's monthly index of pre-tariff prices for imports. This rose in June. It is the smoking gun that tells us who is really paying the tab. The Yale Budget Lab says consumers will face price rises of 40pc for shoes and 38pc for clothes. But higher prices are not the worst of it. The larger threat to the US is that it cannot substitute most of its imports. It would take a decade or more to rebuild industrial capacity across the board. Lorenzo Codogno, a former economist at Bank of America and now at LC Macro, says the US can cover just 10pc of current imports. 'It can perhaps add another 5-10pc over the next six months but after that it will take years. Trump's whole economic recipe is a disaster,' he said. Somebody must have whispered in Trump's ear that it takes 18 years to bring a new copper mine on stream. This week he set off the steepest one-day crash in Comex copper futures since 1968 by exempting copper ore from his 50pc tariffs. Taxes of 50pc remain on imported steel and aluminium, as well as copper products, and these together are a leaden weight around the ankles of US industry. America imports a fifth of its steel. The internal US price now trades at a 105pc premium to China and a 45pc premium to Europe, according to GMK. It is the most expensive in the world. Steel Dynamics and Cleveland Cliffs both raised steel prices last week to lock in bumper profits behind tariff protection. American cars will soon cost more. Trump secured the removal of European tariffs on US vehicles and industrial goods but this is washed away many times over by what he is doing to input costs. US car sales to Europe will fall. European car sales to the US will rise. Ditto for Japan. The aluminium story is worse. Twenty US smelters have closed since 2000. Only four remain. The country imports half its needs, and 90pc of its scrap, mostly from Canada. The US could revive some semi-obsolete smelters with enough subsidy but this would not close the gap. It costs up to $6bn (£4.5bn) and takes six years to build a new one. Rising steel, aluminium and copper costs are already feeding through to the US oil patch, hitting just as the Opec-plus cartel floods the global market with extra barrels. Oil insiders seethed with fury in the Dallas Fed's latest confidential survey. 'It's hard to imagine how much worse policies could have been,' said one executive. This cost shock comes at a time when America's shale boom is already long in the tooth. Scott Sheffield, a fracking pioneer, told this year's CeraWeek energy forum that the best tiers in the Permian would be exhausted by 2028. 'Everybody is running out of Tier 1 inventory,' he said. 'Drill, baby, drill' is a good line at Maga rallies but Trump is in fact putting marginal oil and gas fields out of business. His trade deals stipulate that Europe must buy $750bn of US energy exports over three years, South Korea must buy $100bn and so on. As widely pointed out, this is insanity on stilts. America's entire exports of oil and gas were only $166bn last year. Europe's gas consumption is declining. The EU could not absorb America's gas even if Trump could produce it. There are not enough ships to carry so much liquefied natural gas (LNG), and not enough shipyards able to build new ones. Europe's LNG terminals are running near full capacity. European utilities have long-term gas pipeline contracts with Norway, Algeria and Qatar. Brussels has no legal authority to force them to buy US gas instead. Norwegian pipeline gas is the world's cleanest, with a lower greenhouse footprint than LNG from Texas. The EU would have to scrap its methane regulation to meet Trump's demands, which is part of his purpose. As for buying more American oil, EU refineries cannot handle much more low-sulphur US crude. It is the wrong sort. You do not have to be a free trader in the school of Adam Smith to see that America will be the chief economic victim of its own trade taxes and capricious market meddling. But the greater damage is geopolitical. That hits all of us in the fraternity of open democracies. Britons can allow themselves a wry smile that Trump has just done to Brussels what it did to us in the Brexit wars. The EU used its political leverage over the UK at a vulnerable moment, weaponising emotions over the Irish border and fear of a cliff edge no-deal. At least we won't have to listen to any more insufferable cant about how the EU is a big mighty bloc that calls all the shots. But Brexiteers should restrain their Schadenfreude because the economic premise of Brexit was that the world is a benign place and that a rules-based global trading system exists outside the EU. None of that holds true any more. To Trumpian Americans I can only say this: relish your triumph but do not expect to have many friends left in the world. We cannot yet discern the terrible fall-out from these six months of power-drunk coercion but it will run very deep. Mistreated allies become foes.


Reuters
10 minutes ago
- Reuters
Asian shares set for worst week since April after US tariff blitz
SYDNEY, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Asian shares were headed for the worst week since April on Friday after the U.S. slapped dozens of trading partners with steep tariffs, while investors anxiously await U.S. jobs data that could make or break the case for a Fed rate cut next month. European stock markets are on track for a lower open, with EUROSTOXX 50 futures down 0.5%. Both Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures slipped 0.2% after earnings from Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab failed to meet lofty expectations, sending its shares tumbling 6.6% after hours. Late on Thursday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing tariffs ranging from 10% to 41% on U.S. imports from foreign countries. Rates were set at 25% for India's U.S.-bound exports, 20% for Taiwan's, 19% for Thailand's and 15% for South Korea's. He also increased duties on Canadian goods to 35% from 25% for all products not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, but gave Mexico a 90-day reprieve from higher tariffs to negotiate a broader trade deal. "The latest tariff announcement offers some surface-level clarity, but beneath it lies a fog of uncertainty," said Thomas Rupf, Chief Investment Officer, Asia of VP Bank. "Despite some countries securing better terms, the overall impact is negative. We're entering an era of higher barriers to trade, which will have an impact and hurt growth." MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab fell 1.1% to bring the total loss this week to 2.2%, the biggest since April. South Korea's KOSPI (.KS11), opens new tab plunged 3.5% while Taiwanese shares (.TWII), opens new tab fell 0.5%. Japan's Nikkei (.N225), opens new tab dropped 0.6%. Chinese blue chips (.CSI300), opens new tab fell 0.7% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index (.HSI), opens new tab lost 0.8%. Overnight, Wall Street failed to hold onto an earlier rally. Data showed inflation picked up in June, with new tariffs pushing prices higher and stoking expectations that price pressures could intensify, while weekly jobless claims signalled the labour market remained on a stable footing. Fed funds futures imply just a 39% chance of a rate cut in September, compared with 65% before the Federal Reserve held rates steady on Wednesday, according to the CME's FedWatch. Much now will depend on the U.S. jobs data due later in the day and any upside surprise could price out the chance for a cut next month. Forecasts are centred on a rise of 110,000 in July, while the jobless rate likely ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. The greenback found support from fading prospects of imminent U.S. rate cuts, with the dollar index up 2.5% this week against its peers to 100, in the biggest weekly rise since late 2022. The Canadian dollar was little impacted by the tariff news, having already fallen about 1% this week to a 10-week low. The yen was the biggest loser overnight, with the dollar up 0.8% to 150.7 yen, the highest since late March. The Bank of Japan held interest rates steady on Thursday and revised up its near-term inflation expectations but Governor Kazuo Ueda sounded a little dovish in the press conference. Treasuries were largely steady on Friday. Two-year Treasury yields were flat at 3.9510%, while benchmark 10-year yields ticked up 2 basis points to 4.3781%, after slipping 2 bps overnight. In commodity markets, oil prices were little changed after falling 1% overnight. U.S. crude rose 0.1% to $69.36 per barrel, while Brent was at $71.8 per barrel, up 0.1%. Spot gold prices were up a fraction at $3,294 an ounce.