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Friday, 5 January 2024

2023 Wealth, Sales, Profits and distributions. Trillionaire.

For 2023 i generated profits after all costs of 702 billion isk and from that i paid out 261 billion isk to the Oz Tank Show (well, 1 billion went to another twitch show dangerous_d666).

Therefore, my wealth rose by 441 billion isk from 736 billion isk to 1.2 trillion isk.

So on 2023 i became a trillionaire.


The Basic Numbers

I made sales of 4.0 trillion isk which generated profits of 1.2 trillion isk.  So a nice profit margin of 29.7% and therefore ahead of the 25% i target.

Sales tax of 140 billion + Broker listing fees 60bn + Broker relisting fees 96 billion + courier fees 85bn + Manufacturing taxes 6 billion meant the costs of doing business were 387 billion isk.

Therefore, the profits from by business were 808 billion isk which is a nice 20% margin and higher than the 15% i target.

From which i spent 94 billion on Omega (either directly via plex or through New Eden Store deals) and other costs of 12 billion (moving trading locations when player stations in high sec got nailed and implants for some of the Omega alts).

That therefore left me with profits of 702 billion isk.


Charts

The first chart shows how my wealth has increased since i started on that say in August 2020.  Rising nicely before flattening around July 2023 which is when i started giving my monthly profits to the Oz Tank Show.














That said, there is no hiding the fact that my monthly profits are now actually starting to be below last year.  In September and November 2023 my monthly profits before making any distributions were below the same months in 2022.  The only reason October and December 2023 were higher than the same months in 2022 was due to skill farming on the back of a couple of MCT deals in the New Eden Store.













In part this is due to a decline in average daily sales since around November 2022.  Seems the markets i operate in are just getting quieter - or maybe they are super normal busy at the end of 2022.













And this is reflected in my average daily profits (before distributions) which used to be over 2 billion isk per day but had fallen back to almost 1 billion isk by November 2023.  The spikes in October 2023 and December 2023 are due to the skill farming mentioned above.













I am hoping my average daily profits will stick around 1.5 billion isk.


A few more metrics

Asset turnover, which measures the proportion of assets that were sold in the year, was 5.5x.  In other words, over 2023 i sold all the asset i had up for sale on 1 January 2023 over 5 times.

My profit margin was 20.1% (thats profits before Omega and distribution costs) which means the Return on Capital Employed was 110% which is huge compared to real life companies.

Taking the Omega costs out pulls the Return on Capital Employed to 95% which is still huge.

The large Return on Capital Employed reflects the fact that i need very little additional assets to make my business work.  I don't need factories, stations or ships.  I use NPC stations and third party couriers transport my items.  The only assets i need are the items to sell themselves.

This is a high margin, asset light business with a good asset turnover.  What is not to like?

Thursday, 4 January 2024

Month end update - December 2023

I made 75bn profits in December 2023.  There was no Oz Tank Show and so no distributions were made.  Therefore my wealth rose by the 75bn to 1.177 trillion isk.


Distributions

These days, the aim is to distribute my profits to the Oz Tank Show.  Hence, my wealth will barely increase and any monthly surplus will all be given away at some point.

So far i have given 260bn isk to the Oz Tank Show.

The no-show in December has allowed my profits to catch up with the distributions.

The show started in July and i have generated profits of 313bn in the July - December period and distributed 260bn.


Four Omega Accounts to pay for

Keeping 4 accounts on Omega cost me 7.0bn isk in December - that is as a result of taking advantage of the Omega / Plex deals when they come along every 2 months or so.


75bn profit can be divided into two buckets = 30bn + 45bn

Skill Farming: at the start of December i took advantage of the Platinum Starter Pack offer.  For 1501 plex it gave 3 months Omega (normal cost 1200 plex) + 10 skill extractors + 2 Multiple Training Certificates + 650k skill points.  A great deal.  I now have 30 Large Skill Injectors + 11 Skill Instractors left over = 31 bn isk of value less the 301 additional plex it cost to access this (=301x5 = 1.5bn isk).  I have not sold any - so these are sitting in assets.  But that is 31bn of wealth that is one-off less 1.5bn cost to access it.

Normal Trading: therefore, the normal trading profit was 45bn isk (75-(31-1.5)).  If i strip out the Omega costs of 7bn then my normal trading profit comes to 1.7bn isk per day (45+7)/31.  That is getting better though not back at the levels it was from September 2022 to July 2023.


The basic numbers

In December i had sales of 289bn isk vs November of 219bn.  So a good increase of 32% which really took off in the final two weeks of the month.

Item profits were 111bn isk which is a healthy margin of 38% (111/289).  So, again, profitability is good.  Much better than the 25% target i set.  It is sales i need to improve.

Taxes and Courier fees came to 28bn isk.  Then add in the 7bn plex cost to Omega 4 accounts takes me to 75bn profits made in December.


What i am selling

Same as usual - Implants, Blueprints, ship equipment.

I have a rule that the minimum profits have to be 100m isk.  It is no use me buying items for 5m to sell them for 15m.  The profitability may be great but that won't move the dials.  That said, it is surprising how many items i can buy for 120m from Jita Sell Orders and sell for 220m in the other trading hubs.  At that isk level, players re-equipping don't care about spending an additional 100m isk to save time.

There was a competitor for Blueprints in a few of the trading hubs - but they seem to have gone now.  Good news - takes me less time to update orders.

Implants were doing well but now it seems the running has been taking up by ship equipment.


Manufacturing

I have stopped doing his for now - i need to find a better way of doing it systematically such that my trading hubs can benefit from items being manufactured in Jita and therefore allowing me to get cost that is closer to the Jita Buy price rather than Jita Sell price.


Planetary Interaction

Started this up again to remind me how it works.  Following the changes to volumes, i can keep my planets going for a long time before i need to pick anything up.

The ultimate aim is to do this in low or null sec.


Station Trading

All in Jita.  This is going ok.  Picked up in December to 35bn isk of sales which is healthy levels.

I still really need to ramp this up but again i don't yet have a systematic way of going about it.

My idea of station trading is not buying items when they look cheap.  For me, station trading is about sticking to the slow moving items and quite often i am the only person in Jita trying to sell an item.  Almost always Selling for over 1bn isk.


Alpha Accounts

They have all now stopped trading.  Other than Arnon and Alentene, all the other locations show little promise at this stage.  I will keep them on but they will be dormant for now.


Current Wealth

Current wealth is 1.18 trillion ISK made up from:
  • Plex held as an investment 0bn ISK
  • Items in hanger for sale 61bn ISK
  • Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
  • Omega brought forward 35bn ISK
  • Buy orders on the market 19bn ISK
  • items for sale 1.3 trillion ISK
  • less a 20% provision 257bn ISK*
  • ISK in wallet 23bn ISK

When i add up my wealth, I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK or are used to generate isk that can be readily resold back onto the market.  Any ships or skills or fittings etc i buy are counted as expenses in that month.  The only exception to this rule is Blueprint Originals i use for manufacturing.  They are held at cost.

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.  In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.