Archive for July, 2006
DANVILLE: District officials say John Baldwin Elementary is being renovated and will be getting new items
By Jeanine Benca
Hundreds of appendages jutted from the mound behind John Baldwin Elementary School in Danville.
Danville parent David Struck saw a Dumpster overflowing with shiny blue and metal legs and moved in for closer inspection. He found hundreds of plastic classroom chairs and desks, bookcases and even a piano in the large collection of furniture stacked in a Dumpster and on the ground between two rows of portable classrooms.
Some pieces appeared newer, while others were decidedly worse for the wear.
“I said, ‘That doesn’t look right,’” said Struck, who had been overseeing some children playing in the nearby field when he noticed the heap Thursday. He called the school district looking for answers.
Although the disposal has some parents upset, San Ramon Valley Unified officials say the stacks of discarded items are to be replaced as part of John Baldwin’s ongoing reconstruction and expansion. The $5.6 million project, as well as two other major elementary school reconstruction projects, at Bollinger Canyon in San Ramon and Greenbrook in Danville, are on schedule to be completed by the first day of school.
About a half-dozen additional school modernizations funded by the district’s voter-approved $260 million school bond measure have been completed or are under way.
All the new work has spawned “stuff” — mostly desks, chairs and bookshelves in varying conditions that district officials say the schools can no longer use.
“A big part of it is transporting it and storing it,” said district spokesman Terry Koehne. Portable classrooms that had been set up during the school year now must be cleared away to make way for new construction, leaving their contents homeless.
John Baldwin was built in 1968 and many of its desks are 20 years old, said Koehne. Although most desks and chairs were discarded, some were saved, Koehne said.
In similar situations in the past, the school district has posted auctions on eBay or called other Bay Area school districts to see whether they were interested in the items. Those efforts yielded few takers, said Koehne.
The district cannot just give the furniture away to parents or other private individuals because the items were purchased using public money, he said.
“There’s only so much we can do. It’s kind of a sad reality that since we legally can’t give it away we have to discard it,” Koehne said.
In response to the handful of complaints they have received, school officials will be making contact with churches and other area charitable organizations in the upcoming week to see whether anyone is interested in the items.
If no one comes forward, the furniture will be thrown out as planned.
“I understand their side of the story,” Struck said. “But it hurts seeing all that stuff being (discarded). If they knew they had to get rid of this stuff, why didn’t they contact (charities) earlier? They had all these months to plan.”
July 31st, 2006
KANANA KATHARANGSIPORN
The SET-listed furniture manufacturer and exporter Sun Wood Industries Plc is looking to raise its profile in the
local luxury furniture market, spending 280 million baht for a showroom and marketing activities, according to chief executive Thaveesak Vayakornvichitr.
He said the firm would focus on project customers including hotels and resorts, international schools, restaurants, houses priced from 30 million baht each and condominiums priced above 20 million.
‘’Although luxury residential projects in Bangkok have slowed down, the markets outside Bangkok, such as Phuket, Samui, Hua Hin and Chiang Mai still have high growth,'’ he said yesterday.
Thai consumer spending on furniture is also rising and the market prefers designed products. As a result Sun Wood, which has been exporting most of its output to 20 countries for more than 30 years, has started to do marketing in Thailand.
Yesterday the company opened its first showroom on Ratchadaphisek Road with an investment of 100 million baht. It also plans to spend between 120 million and 180 million baht for marketing.
Sun Wood expects to have 100 million baht in sales from the domestic market, or a 5% share of the premium flooring market worth two billion baht.
During the first quarter of the year, the company posted 300 million baht in revenue, all of which came from exports. However, it recorded a net loss of 37.36 million baht, compared with a profit of 13.8 million a year earlier, attributed to heavy competition from cheaper furniture in world markets as well as more costly raw materials.
Last year the company earned 1.2 billion baht in total revenue.
‘’We aim to maintain 1.2 billion baht from export sales by the end of this year due to the effect from the stronger baht. Our profit this year might be reduced by 8%,'’ Mr Thaveesak said.
Locally, Sun Wood plans to have 200 distributors by the end of the year. It will also expand to Dubai this year.
Currently, Sun Wood has four factories in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani with a total production capacity of one hundred 40-foot containers per month.
Shares of Sun Wood (SUN) closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 6.95 baht, up five satang, in trade worth 35,000 baht.
July 31st, 2006
Candy of the “Candy and Potter” midday show on 107.9 (The Link) just moved here from New York.
“My condo is currently decorated in fabulous brown cardboard (boxes),” she e-mailed. “Where is the best place in Charlotte to find furniture bargains?”
She knows about the shopping available in Hickory, but doesn’t want to pay delivery charges. Here are some of the places I pointed her to closer to home:
• If price is the primary concern, a good place to start is the Rooms to Go clearance center on the Interstate 85 service road near Freedom Drive.
• If you like contemporary, start in South End, including By Design and EQ3.
• If you prefer antique or eclectic looks, try Plaza-Midwood. Or downtown Waxhaw, 30 minutes south of Charlotte.
• For a big selection: Cannon Village in Kannapolis (exit 58 off Interstate 85) has a furniture mall with 350 manufacturers and a Martha Stewart showroom. Got a question?
704-358-5058
or ldyer@charlotteobserver.com
Tip of the Day: Senior Resources
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Senior Centers offer social, educational and recreational programs for people 55 and older. 704-522-6222 or www.charlotteseniorcenters.org.
Crunching the Numbers
9
Charlotte’s ranking on a recently released list of “Most Adventurous Cities” — ahead of Philly, Atlanta, Miami and Chicago (San Francisco was tops). The rating measured accessibility to outdoor sports and residents’ consumption of products associated with adventure. More: www.zestforadventure.com.
Someone You Should Know
Heather Meininger, 32
Why she’s important: Founder of www.Charlottemommies.com, a Web site that gives more than 2,200 local moms a place to make friends and ask advice. She has also founded The Mommies Network, a nonprofit aimed at creating sister sites nationwide (check out Lakenormanmommies.com, Unioncountymommies.com and Hickorymommies.com, among others). Leigh Dyer
July 31st, 2006
By RC BALABAN, Courier Staff Writer
CEDAR FALLS — Most businesses have landmark dates in company history.
That was the day the original store in the 500 block of Main Street burned to the ground in the largest fire the city had seen in a decade.
“That’s when the real refurbishment happened,” said Dale Emmert, president of Simpson Furniture.
The fire wasn’t even fully extinguished before then-president David Sandvold vowed to rebuild on the same site. By October, Simpson Furniture was up and running again.
Not only did the store reopen, it grew. From 1984 to 1997, the store went through three expansions before the company purchased the former Latta warehouse at 2218 Main St. That location served as the company’s warehouse before also becoming Rooms 4 Less.
“From ‘46 to now, our showspace has probably grown about 10 times in square footage,” Emmert said.
The company, celebrating its 60th anniversary, employs about 40, the most to date.
“A strength of our longevity is that so many of our employees have been with us so long,” Emmert said. “We have lots of people who have been here 15 to 30 years, and, in retail, that’s pretty unusual.”
Marla Channer will have been with the company 29 years in December. She finds working there enjoyable.
“I’ve never had any reason to look elsewhere,” Channer said.
Tom Cagley, who has been with Simpson Furniture for 15 years, enjoys dealing with customers, some of whom have been coming to the store for years.
“It’s something when you’re selling to somebody, and now you’re selling to their kids,” Cagley said.
Such longevity extends to the top. The company has had just four presidents in its 60 years.
R.L. Simpson opened the store in 1946 and served as president until the ’70s. Sandvold joined Simpson Furniture in 1948 and worked his way up to president. David Olson became president after Sandvold, and now serves as board chairman. Current president Emmert has been with the company since 1984.
Stability at the helm has been a factor in Simpson’s longevity. Another is the ability to meet customer demand.
“A big factor is that since we’re locally owned. We can change quicker than a lot of our competition can,” Emmert said.
Simpsons doesn’t have to wait for permission from on high to respond to the latest trends.
Challenges facing the company are like those of most businesses: controlling expenses and increases sales.
“And we always keep our eye on other markets — Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, that type of thing, to see if opportunities show there that we may take advantage of,” Emmert said.
With 60 years under its belt, Simpson Furniture goes beyond having repeat customers. Some sales people will run into second- or third-generation customers.
“It’s not uncommon for them to say, ‘My grandparents shopped there’ or ‘I still shop there.’ It makes you feel good,” Emmert said.
Contact RC Balaban at (319) 291-1418 or rc.balaban@wcfcourier.com.
July 31st, 2006
By George Diepenbrock (Contact)
With the expansion of large-scale furniture stores in the Kansas City area, Brian Martin still believes shoppers can get what they want in Lawrence.
“I try to carry everything that people need — from things geared toward college students all the way to the upper end,” said the owner of Affordable Home Furniture, 708 Conn.
Martin recently bought the 20-year-old Lawrence business from his father, Wayne. Martin and his uncle, Butch, are the only employees. They make all of the sales and unload all of the new merchandise once a week.
Martin has lived most of his life in Lawrence and says he still relies on his experience as a state track and football champion at Lawrence High School and All-American 400-meter runner at Kansas University.
After your track career ended at KU, what did you do?
I worked around (the store), off and on. I moved to Sacramento (Calif.) for a while and ran for a club team. In 1999, I moved back here, and I opened a restaurant for a little while. Red Hot Grill, near 23rd and Louisiana.
I was there for about a year and a half. It was long hours, so it was a lot of frustration as probably with any restaurant. It was fun. It was a learning experience; it taught me a lot of business firsthand.
Then I came back here and worked here a little bit off and on, then in 2001 that’s when I started off full time into (the furniture store).
Why did you decide to buy your dad’s store?
He had the bowling alley and the furniture store at the same time, and it was taking up too much of his time. He had to do one or the other, and he’d been doing this for 20 years, so he decided to just stick with the bowling alley.
How does your athletic career still help you as a business owner?
It gives me a better work ethic. It helped me realize that you have to work on what you do every day to get better at it or to improve it. Athletics gave me a lot of confidence in my life that I could do a lot of stuff. The harder I worked, the more I could get out of life.
Affordable Home Furniture
What is your focus as the owner?
We still like to continue what we’ve had here the last couple of years. We like to keep people shopping locally so that they don’t have to travel to Kansas City or Topeka. That’s our main focus here because there’s not a lot of stores left in Lawrence.
We like to have relationships with customers, so they end up growing to like us. They know us, and they see us at the grocery store or just out and about around town. We want to be able to talk to them. That’s the way we built rapport with people, especially since we are from here.
What would you do if you didn’t own the store?
I’d be a chef. I’d go to culinary school and do something in that field. I do a lot of cooking at home. I like to cook for people, too. I try to experiment with everything. I’m a big Food Network fan.
Who has influenced your life the most?
A tie between my dad and my wife, Chelsea. My dad, he taught me a lot about the retail business in general — not only just the furniture aspect. He taught me how to budget; he taught me how to sell — impact sales without being too pushy.
My wife just taught me about patience. Everyone knows you have to be a patient person in a marriage. We met here (at the store). She works at CitiFinancial. They do our financing. She came in and asked me out on a date. So that’s kind of how it started.
July 31st, 2006
By Ylan Q. Mui
Bill Diffee Jr. had big dreams for the expansion of the Colony House furniture store that his grandfather founded in 1936.
Three and a half years ago, he built a new store in Centreville to cater to Washington’s increasingly wealthy and growing suburbs. The store had twice as much room for Colony House’s signature high-end traditional furniture as the original location on Lee Highway, just off Route 66 in Arlington. But business never took off.
Two weeks ago, Diffee let go most of the staff and shut down the store.
“I had envisioned it to be a big success,” he said recently, sitting in the office of his remaining store in Arlington. “It didn’t work out.”
Similar scenarios have been playing out at other independent furniture stores in the Washington area. Stanis Furniture, based in Fairfax, is closing its second location, in Chantilly. Mastercraft Interiors Ltd., one of Colony House’s main competitors, is liquidating its four stores after filing for bankruptcy in May. Brown’s Wood Stuff closed two of its three Virginia stores. Even Georgetown’s home design hot spot Cady’s Alley has taken a hit, with upscale retailers Hollis & Knight and the Ambiente Collection going dark.
The sector has been assailed on several fronts: The housing boom has begun to deflate. Asian imports are lowering prices. Consumer tastes are shifting from more expensive, traditional-style furniture to cheaper and chic design. And the market keeps getting more crowded.
“The state of the furniture industry right now is very tough in this marketplace for a lot of reasons,” Diffee said. Then he asked, “Are you going to write an article, or are you going to write a book?”
The average time that a home in the District sat on the market in June has nearly doubled since last year, from 25 to 49 days, according to the latest data from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., the area’s multiple listings service. In Northern Virginia, the average has jumped from 15 to 49 days.
Some retailers and industry experts say the cooling housing market is directly related to weak performance in home furnishings. Fewer houses sold means fewer to decorate — and slumping sales for retailers.
“The softening in the housing market is definitely having an impact on what consumers perceive they need to buy,” said Janet Hoffman, a managing partner for consulting firm Accenture.
Anthony Lanier, head of EastBanc Inc. and developer of Cady’s Alley, said that when the market is hot, “it’s difficult to make a mistake.” He said, “If we assume we are going into a slower economic environment, then I think it becomes just more competitive.”
But others interpret the effect of the slowdown differently, saying it actually should wind up boosting the home furnishings industry. People should have more to spend if they aren’t saving up for a down payment, the theory goes. And since they’re not buying a new house, they might as well redecorate the old one. In fact, June retail sales data from the Commerce Department showed furniture and home decor up 9.3 percent over the previous year. Peter Greene, president of the Houseworld division of NPD Group Inc., a retail consulting firm, said sales of appliances and housewares have also been up — a sign, he said, that people are remodeling their current abodes.
“I can’t tell you a bad category,” he said.
George Stanis, owner of Stanis Furniture, said the housing slowdown has little to do with his troubles. Furniture sales generally lag six to nine months behind the housing market because buyers need time to settle in and save up before decorating, he said. By that logic, his business should be booming. But it’s not.
He is clearing out his Chantilly inventory and plans to turn over ownership to several employees. The Fairfax store will remain open and under his management.
Stanis pointed to cheap, imported furniture from Asia carried by national retailers as his biggest challenge. Much of his merchandise is manufactured domestically at higher costs, so he hasn’t been able to lower his prices much without eating into profit, he said.
“The market has been turned upside down to a large extent by the import situation,” he said.
Falling furniture prices have also changed home decorating. Furnishings are becoming more like fashion, with shoppers opting for cheap and chic pieces that they can change with each trend, rather than investment-grade furniture designed to last a lifetime.
Mastercraft has cited such shifts in tastes for its demise: Modern furniture with clean lines and friendly price tags is in; ornate and expensive 18th-century reproductions are out.
Colony House, which carries the same styles of furniture as Mastercraft, has diversified its merchandise to help it stay current. Diffee said he has expanded his assortment of “transitional” furniture at slightly lower prices over the past few years. The main floor of his Arlington showroom features a showstopping dining room table, part of the Althorp line, that costs more than $8,000 and is modeled after a table in Princess Diana’s family castle. But upstairs, a svelte cream-colored sofa by Precedent Furniture costs less than $1,400.
“Lifestyles are changing,” Diffee said. Customers “don’t know what they’re going to want in five or 10 years.”
At the same time, the home furnishings industry has become increasingly crowded. Williams-Sonoma Inc., which owns Pottery Barn, has launched three new brands in recent years — Williams-Sonoma Home, West Elm and PB Teen. Crate and Barrel has also spun off a lower-priced line called CB2. Even discounters such as Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have focused on boosting their home furnishings divisions.
“It gets harder and harder for a retailer to differentiate and find that niche that works for them,” said Nick McCoy, a senior consultant at Retail Forward Inc.
Performance among national home furnishings retailers has been spotty. Sales at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. were up in the first quarter. Restoration Hardware Inc. also saw sales growth, though analysts remained cautious about the future. Pier 1 Imports Inc. is changing its merchandise from wicker and papasans to urban contemporary pieces dubbed Loft 21.
For Williams-Sonoma Inc., sales growth at Pottery Barn slowed during the first quarter to 1.1 percent at stores open at least one year. And at Richmond-based Rowe Cos., which owns Storehouse Inc., shipments were down 15.2 percent during its second quarter — an improvement over the previous year but still troubling for the company, which has struggled with internal issues.
“Everybody’s hoping for a better environment, number one,” said Laura Richardson, an analyst with BB&T Capital Markets. “This is definitely an environment where the best performers start to get hurt.”
Colony House owner Diffee lumps all these factors together as “the quadruple whammy.” But he remains optimistic about the future. The Arlington store is still successful, he said, especially in design consultation.
He has learned a lesson: Bigger isn’t always better. Now Diffee is trying to target his customers better. He knows they’re still out there.
“I’m happy about where we are in the marketplace,” he said. “We’re a destination.”
July 31st, 2006
By MARIANNE ROHRLICH
JUST as the best time to buy holiday cards is the day after the holiday, this is the moment to get great deals on
outdoor furniture, which generally goes on sale in July. Much of the merchandise is already sold out, and not all styles will be available in the colors and finishes you want, but good buys still abound. Here are some places to start looking (especially for those who are open-minded enough to buy their second or third choices).
1. The 44-inch-diameter Antibes dining table has a top made of teak slats and a base of stainless steel. If left outdoors the teak will turn silvery gray with age; if oiled regularly the wood will retain its natural color. The table is $1,025 (it was $1,400). The folding Air chair designed by Jasper Morrison, $85 (formerly $115), is polypropylene and fiberglass and comes in a variety of colors. Both are at the Conran Shop, 407 East 59th Street or (212) 755-9079.
2. North Park dining furniture, made of resin wicker handwoven on aluminum frames, resists water and bad weather and won’t fade or rot. The collection is now 25 percent off the regular prices: a 77-by-39-inch dining table is $669, down from $895; a set of two armchairs is $589, reduced from $795. Other styles in the St. Croix collection and the SoHo group, not shown, are also 25 percent off. All are at smithandhawken.com or (800) 940-1170.
3. The 69-inch-round teak Ascot table by Lister is $1,717; it was $2,146. The Stirling armchairs are $430 (formerly $535). Armless chairs are $798 a pair; they were $998. Kaat, a five-foot-long wood bench with arms by Lister, not shown, is $834 (it was $1,042). Metal-framed teak Open loungers by Emu are $828, down from $1,035. All at curranonline.com or (800) 555-6653. All outdoor pieces by Lister and Emu, and Curran’s Bahia line are on sale through Aug. 15 on this site.
4. The Calais oval dining table, 78 by 41 inches and made of white powder-coated aluminum, is $399 (formerly $549). The chairs are $119, reduced from $169; chair cushions are $24.95, down from $34.95. A table and six chairs is $849 (formerly $1,399). At crateandbarrel.com or (800) 967-6696.
5. The Sommerset four-piece set — a loveseat, lounge chair, coffee table and side table — is $995, reduced from $1,299. The set, of natural-colored all-weather wicker over aluminum frames, is at grandinroad.com or (888) 263-9850.
6. The Palms lounger is made of teak slats with stainless steel legs. It is 69 inches long and costs $1,371 (it was $1,714). A coordinating oval-shape side table, 28 inches wide and 16 inches high, is $451 (it was $564). Matching side chairs and armchairs are also on sale. All are from curranonline.com or (800) 555-6653.
July 31st, 2006
SHAKER FURNITURE: ELEGANT, SIMPLE AND SOUGHT AFTER
Antique Shaker furniture, distinctively spare and elegant, lovingly made by hand, has been known to attract a
certain kind of buyer: artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns and Kenneth Noland; architects like Philip Johnson; designers like Helmut Lang; entertainers like Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey. Today there are only about 20 serious collectors of Shaker furniture and not a lot of Shaker antiques on the market at any one time, and it is not easy to find pieces with all their original parts, a good patina and any provenance.
“I used to go to many, many shows, followed all kinds of leads, read all the newspapers, looked at the ads, and I was always competing against the collectors,” recalled Ed Clerk, a collector himself who was once a highly respected dealer in Connecticut. Throughout the 1980’s, Mr. Clerk’s booth at the Winter Antiques Show in New York was the only one filled with Shaker furniture. But after 10 years, he stopped participating.
“I thought that was sufficient,” he said. “It was prestigious but not very profitable. I would collect things for the show all year long and then sell them — I did very well — but I’d end up just making my expenses. Maybe my prices were too low.”
Mr. Clerk has been sorely missed. But this weekend collectors will have an opportunity to see his pieces, part of a larger selection of Shaker furniture, at the Massachusetts auctioneer Willis Henry’s all-Shaker sale at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pittsfield, Mass. The preview begins today at 4 p.m., and the sale starts at noon on Sunday. (More details and an online catalog are at willishenry.com.)
Now 82, Mr. Clerk, who was born in Albany and lived in Manhattan before moving to Connecticut — first Bethlehem and then Norfolk — is a second-generation collector. His mother, Lucy Vine Clerk, and his brother, Willard Vine Clerk, were antiques dealers. Mr. Clerk was active as a dealer until more than a decade ago.
“He was the one years ago who showed us how wonderful Shaker things were,” Mr. Henry said. Today he spends his time as a nature photographer and teaches photography at a college.
Mr. Clerk is selling only “a small part” of his collection, including a double-decker spool holder that retains 13 finely turned threaded spools and an unusual work stand that was in a seminal show on Shaker design at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1986.
The work stand, with six small drawers in the upper portion and two full drawers under the work surface, was probably a sewing desk, a popular piece of furniture in Shaker communities. It is attributed to Orren Haskins (1815-92), a woodworker at the Mount Lebanon Shaker community in New York. The stand is unusual in having its upper section attached to the worktop with an opening in between.
“The opening gives it a very sculptural effect,” Mr. Henry said. “I’m guessing it was there to illuminate the work surface. It is also unusual in that the stand is finished on the back, so it could have stood in the middle of a room.”
Doug Hamel, a Chichester, N.H., dealer who specializes in Shaker, said: “That desk is one of the stars of the sale, in its ultimate simplicity and in its great state of preservation. Haskins was one of the great cabinetmakers.”
Other pieces consigned by Mr. Clerk in the sale include a child’s rocking chair from the Mount Lebanon community; a peg rail for hanging chairs on a wall; a work basket from the Canterbury, N.H., community; a revolving chair that Mr. Clerk used for 40 years; a rocking chair with a writing arm from Watervliet, N.H. (“probably one of a kind,” Mr. Clerk said); and an apothecary chest that has 88 drawers with white porcelain pulls.
They will be entering a tight market. Mr. Hamel said that he was so short of stock that he was pleased when old customers sold things back to him. “I have trouble finding what people are looking for at any specific moment,” he said. “I’ve noticed new buyers coming in who are younger, and they are buying at a fairly aggressive level.”
The sale this Sunday is rich in variety. Of particular interest are some ornate Shaker drawings. Lot 66 is a “spirit drawing,” a pictorial manuscript with hearts, a square and circles on columns filled with dense squiggles in blue ink. It is attributed to Semantha Fairbanks and Mary Wicks of New Lebanon (later called Mount Lebanon), circa 1843. In “Shaker Design,” the catalog to the 1986 Whitney show, June Sprigg wrote, “These drawings were created not as ornament but as sacred representations of divinely inspired visions.”
Lot 67 comprises four “gift drawings,” with watercolor depictions of a red brick building, two sacred trees and a poem in an upside down pyramid. “Members who believed themselves divinely inspired served as ‘instruments’ on whom the spirit world bestowed a wide range of ‘gifts,’ ” Ms. Sprigg wrote. “Some received gifts of song — many sacred songs date from this period — and others were moved to write. Still others preserved their received visions on paper with ink and paint. These were the artists of the ‘gift drawings.’ ”
Such works offer a peek into a distant and appealing spiritual world. And Sunday’s sale provides a rare opportunity to have a comprehensive look.
“There’s not enough material around to supply a robust market,” said John Keith Russell, a South Salem, N.Y., dealer who specializes in Shaker antiques. “If you went fishing every day and had only a 10 percent chance of catching a fish, you would probably find another sport.”
July 31st, 2006
Furniture Today,
ATLANTA — Revenue increases across all divisions fueled an 18.6% jump in total revenues in the second quarter and 21.5% in the six months for rental and rent-to-own major Aaron Rents.
Aaron’s Sales and Lease Ownership division posted revenue gains of 20% and 23% for the quarter and six months, respectively.
Revenues in the latest quarter came to $321.7 million, compared with $271.3 million a year ago. Net profits skyrocketed 28.1% to $20.6 million. For the six months, Aaron recorded revenues of $500 million, up from $415.8 million a year ago, and net income of $2.2 million, up 22.2%.
Same-store revenues in company-owned stores jumped 9.1% in the quarter and 6% in the six months.
“Our business plan remains to rapidly increase our revenues and store base through the opening of new company-operated and franchised stores, plus selective acquisitions,” said Chairman and CEO Charles Loudermilk. “We are very confident of the prospects for our business and are accelerating our store opening plans.
“We anticipate adding approximately 350 new Aaron’s Sales and Lease Ownership stores over the next 18 months, a 30% increase over the current store base,” he said.
During the latest quarter, the company opened 12 company-operated stores and 15 franchised stores. Aaron also acquired eight franchised stores and three stores from independent rental operators, and purchased the accounts of four other third-party stores. The company sold all 12 of its stores in Puerto Rico.
July 31st, 2006
— Furniture Today,
AT THE MARKET — Market visitors here can see an exhibition of European design trends put together by the IMM Cologne fair in Germany.
To create the presentation, Cologne commissioned experts to discover what trends and important developments are affecting interior design on a global basis. Panelists included Tom Dixon, Marie O’Mahony, Chantal Hamaide, Eero Koviosto, Ilse Crawford and Reiko Miyamoto.
“We are very excited to be presenting highlights from our trends manual at the Las Vegas market,” said Udo Traeger, vice president of furniture, interior design and textiles for IMM Cologne. “The World Market Center is an ideal venue for us to offer a taste of Cologne to the United States.”
The exhibition presents part of a series of showcases based on four trend themes — Storytelling, Technique Nature, The New New and New Rituals — that are featured in the trendbook “Interior Trends 2006” published by IMM Cologne. These trends are being presented in four spaces in the Las Vegas Convention Center, displaying a variety of furniture and furnishings materials, from textiles and leather to wood and veneers.
The themes reflect definitions of four ideal consumers representing various furnishing styles that formed the basis of the trend experts’ research.
The project is sponsored by: Plank Collezioni S.r.l., and Desalto S.P.A., both of Italy; Leise Design of Germany, Vitra GmbH, Elmarflötotto GmbH, Kißkalt Designs, and Richard Lampert GmbH & Co. KG, all of Germany; and Fjordfiesta Furniture A/S of Norway.
July 31st, 2006
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