Warhammer maker Games Workshop to debut on FTSE 100

Warhammer maker Games Workshop will make its debut on the blue-chip FTSE 100 index on Monday.

It’s the culmination of a surprising rise for the maker of fantasy figurines.

Shares in the Nottingham-based company have risen almost 2,600 per cent over the last decade, valuing it at just under £4.3bn.

This puts it very close to low-cost airline EasyJet, worth just over £4.3bn, and B&Q owner Kingfisher, at £4.5bn.

The group’s rise was helped this month when it reached a final deal with Amazon for the American giant to turn its Warhammer 40,000 sci-fi universe into movies and TV shows.

Its rise to the FTSE 100 comes almost 50 years after Games Workshop’s founders – Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson and John Peake – founded the company in a flat in Shepherd’s Bush in 1975.

Having started out selling board games, the trio got an early opportunity when Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax asked to be the exclusive distributor of the hit role-playing game in the UK and Europe. Warhammer followed shortly after in 1983, and would become by far the group’s most successful venture.

Livingstone and Jackson sold their shares in Games Workshop for £10 million in 1991. In 1994 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and moved to Nottingham in 1997.

Games Workshop’s headquarters form the heart of the ‘Lead Belt’, a collection of the world’s largest wargaming figure manufacturers based in the East Midlands. From humble beginnings in a west London flat, the company has become a global giant and its former employees have spawned several smaller businesses that together employ more than 2,600 people and contribute millions of pounds to the economy. British.

While many would dismiss the hobby of sending hand-painted miniatures of fantastical creatures into battle as the preserve of misfit boys and men in dimly lit basements, Warhammer has legions of devoted fans around the world. Famous enthusiasts include Superman actor Henry Cavill, as well as musician Ed Sheeran and former Interior Secretary James Cleverly.

The company’s success is even more notable when you consider the extremely low profile of its executive team.

Veteran CEO Kevin Rountree, who has been with the company for more than a quarter of a century, is an enigma with an almost non-existent public profile.

CFO Liz Harrison is another Games Workshop veteran, having joined the group in 2000 as finance manager for its German business.