Manny Stul bets on Fortnite for post-Shopkins hit as Moose Toys profits plunge

Profits at Melbourne-based Moose Toys have fallen more than one-third since the peak of the Shopkins phenomenon passed, but a bet on buying figurine rights for hit online game Fortnite is one of billionaire owner Manny Stul’s hopes for another hot streak.

The grocery-based Shopkins figurines dreamt up at Moose’s Cheltenham headquarters took the world by storm in 2015, making $US100 millions sales in North America that calendar year alone and growing revenue at Mr Stul’s family-owned company to $256.1 million in 2015-16, up 60 per cent on the year before.

That grew to $283.5 million in 2016-17 but slipped 23.5 per cent to $217 million in 2017-18, according to a financial report lodged with the corporate regulator last week. Profit after tax at Moose Enterprise Holdings Pty Ltd was down 38 per cent to $36.2 million.

Shopkins will still fill the stockings of many young girls come December 25, nearly five years since their launch and two years beyond the average life-cycle of a toy concept, by Mr Stul’s estimation.

However he admitted the 2017-18 result, which saw the dividend paid to his family fall to $18.9 million from $71.3 million the prior year, represented “a normalisation … Shopkins is a major brand but it’s no longer the massive phenomenon we experienced.”

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Moose will this Christmas piggyback the massive phenomenon of 2018, online game Fortnite, in an attempt to return revenue to its former glory.

In August it partnered with Fortnite‘s creators, Epic Games, to exclusively develop figurines under three inches tall based on characters from the game, which has around 80 million monthly users.

Mr Stul admitted it was a “left field” move for Moose, which had hitherto conceived and designed all its own products.

“We plonked down a massive advance royalty, but with the orders we’ve got already, we’re confident we’ve got it covered,” he said of the Fortnite figurines, which hit the shelves in December.

Several new Moose inventions will sit alongside them, with Mr Stul noting that Shopkins’ success had allowed the product range to be diversified.

After having zero entries in 2017, Moose this year has five toys on…