Hasbro Financial Earnings Reports (ongoing)

[griffin]

For an update on how well Hasbro is doing, plus some tidbits on a number of Transformers elements, they recently held a quarterly investor/shareholder conference call.

It mentions some upcoming projects, but nothing too specific.

One thing of note is the creation "Allspark Pictures", for their live-action movies... including Transformers 5, My Little Pony and Jem.... leaving the existing "Hasbro Studios" unit to work on their TV projects.

[griffin]

There isn't much in the way of news in the latest quarterly report, but for those who are interested in these things, this is a link to all the numbers... and there are a number of conflicting elements and figures, leaving a lot of room for interpretation.

One notable thing is that they mentioned to the investors about their future plans for Transformers Movies, which we already know about... plus an odd vagueness of when the next one should be out. (if a movie of this size is coming out in 2017, they should have a date known by now with a production schedule, and pre-production started with some of the cast and crew already signed up)

Our plan with the studio and filmakers you may have heard some writers being hired and we have in fact brought in Akiva Goldsman to lead a group of writers to really create a strategic plan around Transformers. We think there are any number of stories to be told from the brand that has been around for 30 years with amazing canon and mythology. We would expect the sequel to the Transformers movie [TF4] to happen in 2017.

[Zommael]

I'd guess the uncertainty surrounding when exactly the next instalment will appear might be because they've decided to go in the direction of a cinematic universe. While TF4 could be seen to be setting up elements of that (The Creators, Optimus in space, KSI hiding the remaining Autobots, the Dinobots off on their own), it may also be that they need to examine how best to approach it in TF5 before they can fully lock it in. It's also doubtful that Hasbro are privy to those plans at this stage in anything but the broadest sense, although I'd expect Paramount to be looking to the TF experts in Hasbro and elsewhere for ideas about how best to expand the property.

I'd imagine we will see a new TF movie in 2017, but kind of hope it's longer, as it now seems to be the gaps between the movies that give us the best and most creative toys.

[griffin]

TFW seems to be sitting in on these, so here are this quarter's financial details for Hasbro and Transformers... for those interested.

Apparently RID has been doing well, including licensing for that line.

As expected and projected, this year has been down for Transformers, due to it being a non-Movie year.

Total revenue for Hasbro was down for the April-June quarter, dragged down by the International revenue (NOT sales, as International Revenue is the commission that Hasbro America gets from the sales in other countries, which also has to pay for the running of the Local Branches), which dropped by 9% (our region was bad, but Europe was worse), noted as being due to the strengthening US$... so expect some pain with toy prices here and in other countries as Hasbro America adjust their commission quotas from the foreign branches to compensate for the stronger US$ (which earns Hasbro America less dollars even if the foreign branches are making the same profit).
So if Hasbro America wants X amount in US$ every quarter from their foreign markets and the US$ keeps getting stronger, those markets have to raise more money from their sales in their currency to meet that same US$ payment.

It is an American company after all, so they won't care about what it does to the prices or collectors in non-American markets... they would expect the employees of those non-American markets to find a way to raise the extra money, or else they would be replaced with people who can.
That's the hard fact of a publicly listed major corporation - at the end of the day they are only in it for the money, to keep the shareholders happy. They do have a little wiggle-room to try to entice certain demographics (like ours), but ultimately, if they need to make hard decisions to meet budget requirements and save their share-price, we are not their safety net... cheap kiddie toys for parents giving gifts would be.


This is a nice timeline to download, even if it is watermarked... as it has a brief timeline of Hasbro's history since it's 1923 beginning.
(not long now before their 100th anniversary)


And as a bit of a tease, we get a slide that reveals some new old toylines coming back for Hasbro soon - Jem, MASK, Micronauts, Stretch Armstrong, and Action Man.

The confirmation of MASK should excite some here, as they were a similar toyline in the 1980s (converting toys), so there were fans for both lines at the time. (especially if you had parents or relatives buy you a transforming toy as a present, and it ended up being something from MASK, Machine Men or Robotech because they didn't realise it had to say "Transformers" on the box)

I think it is sad to see that GIJoe isn't listed as one of their future brands, and instead the Action Man line is, which was what GIJoe was called in some other markets.
With almost no products during their 50th anniversary, and still no definite sign of a 3rd movie being released any time soon, maybe Retailers are just not showing any interest in the toyline at the moment after the huge mess caused by the second GIJoe movie (the movie was pushed back 9 months at the last minute by the Movie Studio to make it 3D, which killed off any interest in the toyline by Retailers who didn't want them 9 months before the Movie comes out, and it probably also meant missing factory production schedules for most of the later wave Movie toys... because they couldn't just squeeze them in later when other toylines or products were needed to be made).

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Hrm, Interesting. Good to see some mention od MASK, but wierd that Action Man is on for a comeback. I remember it had a fairly strong shelf presence over here when it was out, with that dodgy cartoon and a butt load of toys. They sat on the shelves for ages until it faded away.

I wonder if they will doe the same big toys for A.M?

Can't wait to see what they have planned fo MASK. Probably nothing as cool as the original toys but hey, it'll be welcome look at by me

[Lord_Zed]

Hey the 2000 series Action Man from Mainframe was pretty decent as I recall, it pushed the TV 3D from Beast Wars a little further toward the end of its run.

Not sure whether to be excited for new MASK or not, those old toys were a level of quality we just wont get in non collector toys in modern times. I half expect them to like Ben 10 or something.

Speaking of which Gi Joe like Matel's MOTU seems to be confined to limited small collector aimed lines, so I wonder which any of these resurrected brands will gain traction.

[Meister]

Wow MASK, now that's bringing back some memories

[DELTAprime]

The way Hasbro gets commission from it's international branches always seems odd to me. You don't see Apple HQ in Cupertino getting commissions from it's sales around the world, they just take all the money they make as a global business and put it into bank accounts around the world till it's needed.

[Trent]

The way Hasbro gets commission from it's international branches always seems odd to me. You don't see Apple HQ in Cupertino getting commissions from it's sales around the world, they just take all the money they make as a global business and put it into bank accounts around the world till it's needed.

Which is why the Australian government is trying to crack down on them. the reason they do that is it's a great way to avoid tax.

[griffin]

Yes... the Hasbro model means they pay their taxes here, and in addition to paying for the costs of their local branch office and their taxes, they pay the American head office for the privilege of accessing Hasbro products to sell here.
But since the American head office requires US$, at a certain amount each quarter, the AU$ amount has to meet that required US$ amount... which means higher prices if the AU$ value plunges like it has been recently.


Those companies that have been dodging tax and GST by setting themselves up as a foreign entity exporting their products into Australia to their customers via a "local" company, is why the Government is wanting to crack down on all online sales... ruining it for those of us who were buying small amounts of products from actual foreign sources GST-free.