In the pre-close trading update at the end of May, management provided indications of where headline figures for FY26 would be: core revenue of not less than £625m, licensing revenue of not less than £30m and PBT of not less than £265m. At the time, we highlighted that FY26 was a strong year, beating our prior estimates, and that exceeding FY25’s profit with a much lower contribution from high-margin licensing in FY26 was a great performance on the back of FY24 and FY25, which benefited from the launches of new editions of Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The actual reported figures today are: core revenue of £626.8m, licensing revenue of £32.9m and PBT of £275.7m; the latter stands out here.
On a constant currency (cc) basis, core revenue grew by c 12% in FY26, with greater growth in H1 (c 18%) versus H2 (c 7%). The driver of core’s revenue growth was the Trade channel with c 18% cc growth, while Retail’s c 3% cc growth and Online’s c 2% cc growth, both held back by declines in the UK and Australia and New Zealand, were below the group average with implied limited growth/declines for Retail and Online in H226.
From a profitability perspective, core’s operating margin increased 160bp in FY26 to give cc growth of c 17%, indicating good cost control as the business grew. The only noted absolute saving in operating costs versus the prior year was a year-on-year reduction in the group profit share of £2.4m. The strong increase in operating profit took its return on capital employed to 196%, from 191% in FY25.
The closing cash position of c £183m was well ahead of FY25’s c £133m and management has announced an increase in its required cash buffer, to £120m from £100m, to reflect the growing scale of the business. With the results, management has declared a second dividend for the year of 140p/share, taking the cumulative total to 230p/share versus 140p/share at the same stage last year.
Other notable news in the release is that for the coming year, the company is piloting the management of its sales into smaller regions to provide better information to the relatively new operational head of sales.
With respect to the outlook for growth, the company will open c 30 new stores across North America, Continental Europe and Asia in FY27, which compares with 28 net new store openings in FY26, and new country managers have been appointed in China and South Korea.
With respect to Amazon, management highlights its partners will soon be moving to scripting, having completed initial outlines.
