It’s good to be in the business of “Star Wars” these days. Hasbro, Inc. (ticker: HAS), which has a license to sell certain toys from the movie franchise found that came out last year. While revenues jumped just 4 percent, its boys division flew up 20 percent, in large part because of its Star Wars toys.
But what’s often the case in the toy industry, the hot item one year won’t likely remain on the top the next. And as the holidays approach, the original Star Wars isn’t necessarily on the tip of everyone’s tongue, even as the first franchise spinoff, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” comes out in December.
Yet, despite the potential coals in the holiday sales, HAS stock has jumped nearly 27 percent in 2016. The rise comes after a multi-year effort to shift the company into focusing on its largest brands and greatest stories. Has Hasbro transitioned far enough from a cyclical toy company to make it a buy in non-hit years? Or could the cycle of consumer products rear its head, sending Hasbro downward?
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Star Wars offers prospects for years. While Star Wars isn’t expected to have as robust of an impact on the company’s bottom line this year, they’re not expected to fall. Finishing flat over the holidays “would be a strong result, if they achieve that,” says Trevor Young, an analyst at Jefferies.
It’s an encouraging sign, since often in non-movie years a franchise’s popularity can drop between 30 percent and 50 percent, Young says. “Rogue One” is outside the Star Wars anthology, which has reduced the hysteria around the film.
And while Hasbro shares the toy production of Star Wars products, it still signals the impact that it can have for years to come. Since the Walt Disney Co. ( DIS) expects to release a Star Wars movie every year for the next several years, Star Wars will remain a valuable franchise.
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Hasbro will “continue to bring experiences to consumers year after year,” says Piper Jaffray managing director Stephanie Wissink.
HAS is learning from its partnership with Disney. One reason the optimism remains high around Hasbro is that for the first holiday season, the company will be selling Disney dolls, like Elsa from the mega-hit “Frozen.” This isn’t just a win for Hasbro, but a blow to Mattel ( MAT), which previously handled production.
Hasbro stole the business away from Mattel by offering Disney insight into the experience it will try to sell, Wissink says. Instead of simply producing dolls, it identified why modern girls buy dolls, and targets them based on their personalities. Hasbro “discovered unique attributes that no one had brought back to Disney before,” Wissink says.
It’s also because Hasbro had moved away from manufacturing its own products, unlike Mattel. In 2015, it sold two of its largest remaining plants, one in Massachusetts and the other in Ireland. This allows Hasbro to focus efforts — and investments – on the marketing and selling of products, while outsourcing manufacturing.
Hasbro has tried to find stories that have long consumer cycles, like Disney princesses and Star Wars, or Transformers and My Little Pony. These are brands that come back often, as opposed to smaller movies that have a big success but can’t be repeated year after year.
Increasing the exposure to their brands. Licensing partners’ brands has grown to nearly 30 percent of revenues. It’s not something that Hasbro necessarily wants to have taking up a greater percentage of the revenue pie. “That’s toward the high end of the range in terms of what they’re comfortable with,” Young says.
That’s because margins on these licenses aren’t as strong as Hasbro’s owned entities, since the company has to pay royalties back to Disney, for example. That’s also why it’s important for Hasbro to grow its game business — like Monopoly and Game of Life — and its own brands, like Nerf, My Little Pony and Transformers.
For games, it has transitioned the popularity onto digital formats — Monopoly is on Apple’s ( AAPL) app store top 20 most-downloaded paid apps, for example. And Transformers has another movie coming out next year, along with efforts in growing the franchise on television, including the release of a cartoon aimed at grownups earlier this year.
Can Hasbro’s stories grow beyond the cycle? The 52 percent jump in stock price over the past two years has left Hasbro pricey compared to its past. With a 2017 price-earnings of 18, it’s at a very similar level to Mattel and a slight premium to its historical average.
Whether or not that’s expensive depends on the eye of the beholder. For those that believe Hasbro is a toy company, completely at the whim of the cycle toy manufacturers deal with, then there’s limited room for upside.
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But if Hasbro has moved beyond just a toy company to one that is developer, marketer and storyteller, then 18 might sound enticing. As long as Star Wars remains fresh, that is.
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4 Rules About Buying Hasbro, Inc. (HAS) Stock originally appeared on usnews.com
