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transcript july 21, 2008 hsbro earnings conference call and business overview
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<blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4402285" data-attributes="member: 55764"><p>to respond to my own post, i thought it was interesting that they only mentioned wotc in passing. this is 2 months after 4e released. this was a huge meeting with all the big wall street firms. this is where you toot your own horn loudly. if 4e really did well they would have been talking about it here.</p><p></p><p>also, they mentioned a february conference call. the last meeting of this type. i went back and looked at that one. i will copy and paste the references to wotc from that february meeting below:</p><p></p><p>.....</p><p>ARGARET WHITFIELD: In your comments, I think David, you were referring a lot to the full year numbers. Could you give me some color on why the operating profit in North America was down 22% but it was up 40% overseas?</p><p></p><p>DAVID HARGREAVES: Yes. I think in the U.S. in particular, A, we were trying to anniversary a very strong fourth quarter last year. I think what happened last year is that we ended up exceptionally clean in terms of obsolescence in terms of markdowns. In the fourth quarter of last year, we reversed some reserves. That said, this year also included a number of items of investment spending. We are spending against a start-up in Brazil, a start-up of our own company. We have certainly been -- kept the advertising going throughout the full quarter in order to make sure we drove very clean retail position and we have also been investment spending in the Wizards of the Coast online initiative. So I think those were factors that meant the operating profit in North America were low in the fourth quarter.</p><p></p><p>......</p><p></p><p>AL VERRECCHIA: Good morning.</p><p></p><p>THOMAS RUSSO: Good morning. Al, actually, on the comments relating to the investment spending at the moment of Wizards, with their online offering, I'm curious as to how you will go about developing that product and whether it falls into the EA online relationship? And then speaking as well about your online activities in particular as it relates to the virtual world that others in the toy industry have created for their children audience with abundant chance for the kids to spend lots of ongoing money. What's your role in the virtual gaming area and then also what's your plan for spending the money on developing wizards?</p><p></p><p>AL VERRECCHIA: In terms of Wizards, let me start by -- I think you know that Magic:Online has been up and running for a number of years now. Some of the money we're spending is to improve that, the technology that supports that offering. And then we're also investing in something we called Gleemax which was an online gaming site for people who not only play Magic but are really involved in gaming in general. It's a site that will have -- it's more of a building a community of game players. There will be the opportunity to play games. There will be the opportunity to communicate with other game players. It's a place where people can go, who are really interested in what we would call hobby or niche games. We're spending a fair amount of money in that regard and that site's probably, while it's up now, will be continuing to add games and new features to it throughout the year. In terms of the virtual world for children, I'll let David talk about the VIPs, which were recently launched and we're starting to go nationwide with that.</p><p></p><p>.......</p><p></p><p></p><p>so it looks like the gleemax thing was pretty huge for them, much bigger than dnd insider. and it failed. that puts the gleemax thing in perspective a little bit better i think. dnd insider does not seem to be anywhere near as important as gleemax was, based on the fact that it wasn't even mentioned in the context of this section of the Q&A. that would have been the place to say something good about it.</p><p></p><p>joe</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="joethelawyer, post: 4402285, member: 55764"] to respond to my own post, i thought it was interesting that they only mentioned wotc in passing. this is 2 months after 4e released. this was a huge meeting with all the big wall street firms. this is where you toot your own horn loudly. if 4e really did well they would have been talking about it here. also, they mentioned a february conference call. the last meeting of this type. i went back and looked at that one. i will copy and paste the references to wotc from that february meeting below: ..... ARGARET WHITFIELD: In your comments, I think David, you were referring a lot to the full year numbers. Could you give me some color on why the operating profit in North America was down 22% but it was up 40% overseas? DAVID HARGREAVES: Yes. I think in the U.S. in particular, A, we were trying to anniversary a very strong fourth quarter last year. I think what happened last year is that we ended up exceptionally clean in terms of obsolescence in terms of markdowns. In the fourth quarter of last year, we reversed some reserves. That said, this year also included a number of items of investment spending. We are spending against a start-up in Brazil, a start-up of our own company. We have certainly been -- kept the advertising going throughout the full quarter in order to make sure we drove very clean retail position and we have also been investment spending in the Wizards of the Coast online initiative. So I think those were factors that meant the operating profit in North America were low in the fourth quarter. ...... AL VERRECCHIA: Good morning. THOMAS RUSSO: Good morning. Al, actually, on the comments relating to the investment spending at the moment of Wizards, with their online offering, I'm curious as to how you will go about developing that product and whether it falls into the EA online relationship? And then speaking as well about your online activities in particular as it relates to the virtual world that others in the toy industry have created for their children audience with abundant chance for the kids to spend lots of ongoing money. What's your role in the virtual gaming area and then also what's your plan for spending the money on developing wizards? AL VERRECCHIA: In terms of Wizards, let me start by -- I think you know that Magic:Online has been up and running for a number of years now. Some of the money we're spending is to improve that, the technology that supports that offering. And then we're also investing in something we called Gleemax which was an online gaming site for people who not only play Magic but are really involved in gaming in general. It's a site that will have -- it's more of a building a community of game players. There will be the opportunity to play games. There will be the opportunity to communicate with other game players. It's a place where people can go, who are really interested in what we would call hobby or niche games. We're spending a fair amount of money in that regard and that site's probably, while it's up now, will be continuing to add games and new features to it throughout the year. In terms of the virtual world for children, I'll let David talk about the VIPs, which were recently launched and we're starting to go nationwide with that. ....... so it looks like the gleemax thing was pretty huge for them, much bigger than dnd insider. and it failed. that puts the gleemax thing in perspective a little bit better i think. dnd insider does not seem to be anywhere near as important as gleemax was, based on the fact that it wasn't even mentioned in the context of this section of the Q&A. that would have been the place to say something good about it. joe [/QUOTE]
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