marknorton Posted August 27, 2009 Share #1 Posted August 27, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) So here is some information on Leica Camera Ltd, the wholly owned UK subsidiary of Leica Camera AG, all pulled from published resources. 1. Sales for year ending 31 March 2008 were £7,907,000. They made a Gross Profit of £1,872,000, a gross margin of 30%. 2. Their net profit before tax was £307,000, tax paid £97,000, retained profit £210,000, dividends 0. 3. Their net assets were £1,698,000. The Directors of the Company, 4 of them, paid themselves a very modest £93,000. 4. One of the Directors at the time was a certain Stephen K Lee. The K stands for Kenneth and he lives in Edina, Minnesota. Jolly cold up there, or at least it was I worked for IBM in Rochester, MN. 5. Leica Camera Ltd issued share capital is a sizeable £0.02, both £0.01 shares being owned by Leica Camera AG. 6. Leica Camera Ltd have a very good credit rating; a Credit Limit of £170,000 is thought appropriate. 7. One of the Directors lives a little less than 2 miles from the Leica office and takes 6 minutes to get to work. The house he lives in was sold for £272,000 in September 2008. 8. In 2008, Leica Camera Ltd had 19 employees who between them earned £509,000. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 27, 2009 Posted August 27, 2009 Hi marknorton, Take a look here 8 things you never knew about Leica Camera UK. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
stunsworth Posted August 27, 2009 Share #2 Posted August 27, 2009 5. Leica Camera Ltd issued share capital is a sizeable £0.02, both £0.01 shares being owned by Leica Camera AG. The only question is whether I can afford to stump up the 2p it would take to buy them out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
miami91 Posted August 27, 2009 Share #3 Posted August 27, 2009 4. One of the Directors at the time was a certain Stephen K Lee. The K stands for Kenneth and he lives in Edina, Minnesota. Jolly cold up there, or at least it was I worked for IBM in Rochester, MN. I can vouch for this! Minnesota is a miserable place to live between November and April. Unfortunately, it's nothing to celebrate the rest of the year either. As I recall, before coming to Leica Lee was previously an executive at Best Buy, a consumer appliance reseller (think Comet or Curry's) that is also headquartered in the Minneapolis area. Jeff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenneth Posted August 27, 2009 Share #4 Posted August 27, 2009 So here is some information on Leica Camera Ltd, the wholly owned UK subsidiary of Leica Camera AG, all pulled from published resources. 1. Sales for year ending 31 March 2008 were £7,907,000. They made a Gross Profit of £1,872,000, a gross margin of 30%. 2. Their net profit before tax was £307,000, tax paid £97,000, retained profit £210,000, dividends 0. 3. Their net assets were £1,698,000. The Directors of the Company, 4 of them, paid themselves a very modest £93,000. 4. One of the Directors at the time was a certain Stephen K Lee. The K stands for Kenneth and he lives in Edina, Minnesota. Jolly cold up there, or at least it was I worked for IBM in Rochester, MN. 5. Leica Camera Ltd issued share capital is a sizeable £0.02, both £0.01 shares being owned by Leica Camera AG. 6. Leica Camera Ltd have a very good credit rating; a Credit Limit of £170,000 is thought appropriate. 7. One of the Directors lives a little less than 2 miles from the Leica office and takes 6 minutes to get to work. The house he lives in was sold for £272,000 in September 2008. 8. In 2008, Leica Camera Ltd had 19 employees who between them earned £509,000. I think you need to get out more Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick_dykstra Posted August 27, 2009 Share #5 Posted August 27, 2009 I think you need to get out more No, no, don't say that! We want Mark to stay right where he is! In his lab (dungeon) pulling our (his) favorite cameras apart, to show us their innards, to foretell the future and keep the gods happy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BigSplash Posted August 28, 2009 Share #6 Posted August 28, 2009 So here is some information on Leica Camera Ltd, the wholly owned UK subsidiary of Leica Camera AG, all pulled from published resources. 1. Sales for year ending 31 March 2008 were £7,907,000. They made a Gross Profit of £1,872,000, a gross margin of 30%. 2. Their net profit before tax was £307,000, tax paid £97,000, retained profit £210,000, dividends 0. 3. Their net assets were £1,698,000. The Directors of the Company, 4 of them, paid themselves a very modest £93,000. 4. One of the Directors at the time was a certain Stephen K Lee. The K stands for Kenneth and he lives in Edina, Minnesota. Jolly cold up there, or at least it was I worked for IBM in Rochester, MN. 5. Leica Camera Ltd issued share capital is a sizeable £0.02, both £0.01 shares being owned by Leica Camera AG. 6. Leica Camera Ltd have a very good credit rating; a Credit Limit of £170,000 is thought appropriate. 7. One of the Directors lives a little less than 2 miles from the Leica office and takes 6 minutes to get to work. The house he lives in was sold for £272,000 in September 2008. 8. In 2008, Leica Camera Ltd had 19 employees who between them earned £509,000. What is a surprise to me is that Leica UK declared a £307K profit and then paid a £97K UK tax on this....at a time that Leica Camera AG was making a significant loss in Germany. I presume that there is a strategy to offload profits and losses from the center to fully owned subsids. to achieve tax optimisation and of course remaining legal. It is quite normal for example to levy a corporate royalty fee for IPR, R&D contribution, Corporate overhead costs including marketing towards fully owned subsidiaries. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the next fiscal year as it is difficult to change the accounting strategy on an annual basis. without a good rationale. The inland revenue are sensitive to that one. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbaron Posted August 28, 2009 Share #7 Posted August 28, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) There's always a twist in your posts Frank. Every single thing you write here has an underlying thread of doom and gloom to it. Why is that? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BigSplash Posted August 28, 2009 Share #8 Posted August 28, 2009 There's always a twist in your posts Frank. Every single thing you write here has an underlying thread of doom and gloom to it. Why is that? I am trying to understand how you get doom & gloom out of my post above...Please explain. I say: > Leica has posted a profit in the UK and have declared a loss in Germany. > I see it as an opportunity to actually share the Leica AG Germany loss across the country subsidiaries. (They have apparently opted to NOT do this in the last fiscal year) . > In future years I point out that they could finish up , quite legally, paying less taxes using well established international accounting rules How on earth do you see anything at all negatively that remotely represents doom & gloom. For goodness sake stop this behavior it is really tiresome. You clearly did not digest my thread, you have a biassed view (like some of your mates) about any posting I give ...get real and read what I say before you comment. Otherwise you just look ridiculous. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
redbaron Posted August 28, 2009 Share #9 Posted August 28, 2009 What is a surprise to me is that Leica UK declared a £307K profit and then paid a £97K UK tax on this....at a time that Leica Camera AG was making a significant loss in Germany. I presume that there is a strategy to offload profits and losses from the center to fully owned subsids. to achieve tax optimisation and of course remaining legal. It is quite normal for example to levy a corporate royalty fee for IPR, R&D contribution, Corporate overhead costs including marketing towards fully owned subsidiaries. It will be interesting to see how this evolves in the next fiscal year as it is difficult to change the accounting strategy on an annual basis. without a good rationale. The inland revenue are sensitive to that one. Your words, my highlighting, as requested. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pangur Ban Posted August 28, 2009 Share #10 Posted August 28, 2009 8. In 2008, Leica Camera Ltd had 19 employees who between them earned £509,000. I wonder what they all do - presumably a mix between accounts, marketing, admin, customer service but how many technicians? I had my M3 serviced by Leica UK a couple of years ago soon after I bought it and they did a wonderful job with it, smooth as butter. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted August 28, 2009 Share #11 Posted August 28, 2009 but how many technicians? Just one I think. Doesn't he also man the binoculars stall at various bird fairs around the country? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BigSplash Posted August 28, 2009 Share #12 Posted August 28, 2009 Your words, my highlighting, as requested. You do not get it. They made a loss in Germany and declared a profit in UK where they then had to pay a tax on that profit......Why not declare a loss in both places and pay no tax in UK? Why not organise legal entity reporting to optimise the tax paid........This has nothing to do with doom and gloom. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alun Posted August 28, 2009 Share #13 Posted August 28, 2009 I swear there once was a time when this forum was primarily about photography... Or maybe I'm mixing it up with Rangefinder Forum or one of those other places.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 28, 2009 Share #14 Posted August 28, 2009 Alun That's why I first came here, that's for sure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted August 28, 2009 Author Share #15 Posted August 28, 2009 Sorry, yes, I should have posted this in Barnack's Bar... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenneth Posted August 28, 2009 Share #16 Posted August 28, 2009 There's always a twist in your posts Frank. Every single thing you write here has an underlying thread of doom and gloom to it. Why is that?I think some people are like that Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenneth Posted August 28, 2009 Share #17 Posted August 28, 2009 I swear there once was a time when this forum was primarily about photography... Or maybe I'm mixing it up with Rangefinder Forum or one of those other places....Well said Alun. I have no interest in the goings on at Leica only to say that they seemed very helpful when I spoke to them Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share #18 Posted August 29, 2009 Kenneth, it's good to hear they were helpful when you spoke to them but the reason they were there at all is that they're still in business and the purpose of my post - trivia aside - was to show, for the most recently reported results at least, that Leica in the UK is a profitable business. We can't tell the whole story of course - the company's main supplier is also its owner so there may be some distortions - but at face value, Leica Camera Ltd is a viable business. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 29, 2009 Share #19 Posted August 29, 2009 Sorry, yes, I should have posted this in Barnack's Bar... Mark I think that Alun's post was referring to the large number of "business orientated posts" that have been on the forum recently. This particular information is very interesting in and of its self and is highly relevant. Long may Leica Camera Ltd's success continue Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share #20 Posted August 29, 2009 Well said Alun. I have no interest in the goings on at Leica only to say that they seemed very helpful when I spoke to them Come now Kenneth, I'm sure you're dead chuffed to find out Stephen K Lee's parents gave him the same name as a future member of the Leica User Forum Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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