Archive for July 10th, 2007
By James P. Miller
Woodard LLC, the Chicago outdoor-furniture firm owned by the Crown family’s CC Industries holding company, said today that the family is evaluating “strategic options” for Woodard as part of a broader review CC is conducting of its portfolio of businesses.
CC Industries owns a variety of assets, including truck-trailer maker Great Dane, farm-equipment manufacturer Bush Hog, real estate holdings, and Woodard. Over the past several months, the Crown family holding vehicle has opted to shed the bulk of its movie-theater operations and golf-course interests.
In a Monday release, Woodard noted that those divestitures were the result of the family’s recent decision “to strategically evaluate their portfolio of operating businesses.”
In connection with that effort, the maker of metal and wicker furniture said, CC Industries has “been engaged in discussions with potential financial and operating partners to evaluate the stategic options for Woodard.” To date, the company said, “nothing has been finalized” regarding Woodard’s future.
jpmiller@tribune.com
July 10th, 2007
By: Furniture World Magazine
RugMark announced that their recently released How to Buy a Rug guide makes it easier for individuals to buy handmade rugs that are both visually beautiful and ethically made. The guide, which distills the often daunting process of purchasing a handmade rug into five steps, stresses the importance of selecting a carpet that is made by skilled adult artisans.
“A handmade carpet woven by children is ugly no matter what it looks like,” said Nina Smith, Executive Director of RugMark USA. Nearly 300,000 children are illegally exploited as child labor in the carpet industry in South Asia and many of these carpets end up in American homes. Smith continued, “Consumers can avoid goods made by underage workers and learn about how to select a quality carpet by following the recommendations in How to Buy a Rug and demanding child-labor-free rugs.”
Established in 1994, RugMark works to end illegal child labor in the carpet industry in South Asia through loom and factory monitoring and certification, consumer labeling, and by offering education to former child weavers. Rugs from weaving facilities that have been inspected and certified child-labor-free by independent inspectors are marked with the RugMark® label, the best possible assurance that children were not employed in the making of a rug.
RugMark is working to completely eliminate child labor from South Asia’s handmade rug industry by 2012 by raising consumer and industry awareness and increasing the market share of RugMark certified rugs. This is the goal of RugMark’s national consumer awareness campaign, The Most Beautiful Rug, which educates people to make humanitarian purchasing choices. The How to Buy a Rug guide is an informative new tool for individuals and industry members alike. Copies of How to Buy a Rug are available at www.RugMark.org or by requesting a copy at info@RugMark.org.
About RugMark
RugMark is an international nonprofit organization working to end exploitative child labor in the carpet industry and give educational opportunities to children in India, Nepal and Pakistan. The RugMark label offers the best assurance that no illegal child labor was used in the manufacture of a carpet or rug. A list of importers and retailers that sell RugMark certified rugs is available at www.RugMark.org.
July 10th, 2007
Slumberland (www.slumberland.com), one of the Midwest’s largest furniture retailers, kicked off a five-week celebration of the company’s 40th Anniversary . The celebration will include the company’s best sales offers of the year, special financing offers and numerous giveaways to commemorate the milestone.
As a show of thanks for continued customer support, Slumberland will be giving away one $1,000 shopping spree for each of its 40 years in business. Shoppers can enter to win the $40,000 in shopping sprees at any of Slumberland’s 107 locations.
“The tremendous loyalty and support our employees and customers have shown us over the years have allowed us to reach this milestone,” said Ken Larson, Slumberland’s founder and CEO. “Slumberland’s 40th Anniversary Sale and the shopping spree giveaways are our way of showing our gratitude.”
Among the 40th Anniversary special offers available during the five-week event are no interest financing until 2011 on qualifying purchases and featured items sold at 40% off their regular price.
A complete list of Slumberland locations can be found at http://www.slumberland.com/locations.asp
About Slumberland
Founded in 1967 in Richfield, Minn., Slumberland began as a mattress and La-Z-Boy specialty shop whose mission has been to make people comfortable with both its products and prices. Over the past 40 years Slumberland has expanded to 107 stores across 10 states and is now America’s top seller of La-Z-Boy upholstery and the Midwest’s largest retailer of Natuzzi leather and both Sealy and Simmons mattresses.
July 10th, 2007
REDLANDS - A Friday morning burglary left a home on the 1300 block of East Colton Avenue with less furniture.
A bedroom set, coffee table and end table were taken. A neighbor reported seeing a white male at the house at about 9:30 a.m. Friday loading the furniture onto a truck.
A neighbor said the brown-haired man wore gray shorts and a dark T-shirt, according to police reports,
July 10th, 2007
2007–Office furniture orders continued to slow in May toward a growth rate that tracks the GDP, according to Raymond James analyst Budd Bugatch. In a research note Bugatch said the contraction in orders is finally starting to hurt public companies’ stock performance.
The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) said May orders had increased 5 percent year over year to $975 million. Shipments rose 7 percent to $940 million.
Steelcase, HNI Corp., Herman Miller Inc. and Knoll Inc. enjoyed percentage order increases into the low double-digits in 2004 and 2005, but the industry has cooled since then.
In January, monthly orders fell for the first time since July 2004.
Since then, orders have increased an average of 5.2 percent year over year, which is about where they will remain, Bugatch said, in the absence of the emergence of a widely adopted innovation such as the cubicle.
“Net-net, the May results largely confirm our view about moderating industry growth to a nominal GDP-like range of 3%-6%,” Bugatch wrote.
Until recently, however, investors remained complacent despite indications of slowing industry growth, Bugatch said.
That changed in June, as shares of all four of the major public office furniture companies’ fell, underperforming the S&P 500 Index.
BIFMA compiled its May report from 40 companies, which account for about 73 percent of the industry’s
July 10th, 2007
By: Furniture World Magazine
Serta International announced a new and exclusive partnership with Americana de Colchones, Colombia’s leading bedding manufacturer and retailer. As Serta Colombia S.A., Americana de Colchones will manufacture Serta-branded mattresses and box springs including the Sertapedic®, Perfect Sleeper® and Perfect Day® product lines.
The Serta products will be introduced to consumers in July 2007, when Serta Colombia S.A. opens its first store in Bogotá. Serta stores franchises will be available in the near future.
“We are very excited to continue our brand reach overseas and into Colombia,” said Bob Malin, Vice President of Licensing for Serta International. Serta International began selling mattress in Russia earlier this year.
The Reyes family founded Americana de Colchones in 1977. Headquartered in Bogotá, Colombia, Americana de Colchones operates 30 company-owned retail stores in 10 different cities throughout Colombia. Americana is the leading supplier to Colombia’s hospitality industry, furniture retailers and other distributors.
About Serta
Serta is a bedding brand leader and the manufacturer of the best selling premium mattress in America, The Serta Perfect Sleeper®, the upscale Perfect Day® collection and the elegant Vera Wang by Serta® Collection. As the leading provider of mattresses to the hospitality industry, Serta partners with hotel groups such as Hilton Hotels, Marriott, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Bellagio Hotel, Wyndham Hotels, Omni Hotels, Choice Hotels, Accor Hotels and many more.
Headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, Serta has 24 U.S. and four Canadian manufacturing plants. In addition, Serta is distributed internationally in 60 other countries. With its worldwide network, Serta is able to respond quickly to customers’ needs while preserving strict control standards to ensure the highest quality products.
July 10th, 2007
LATEST: Actress ANNE HECHE has been accused of stealing furniture by her estranged husband COLEY LAFFOON. Laffoon filed for divorce from Heche in February (07) after five years of marriage and a month after the actress’ romance with her Men In Trees co-star James Tupper went public.
In documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Laffoon claims he returned to the L.A. home they share between them to find a footstool, rugs and a king-size bed missing. He accuses the actress of taken the items and wants her prevented from removing any more possession from the house. However, Heche denies the allegations, insisting the items belonged to her before the marriage. Laffoon was recently granted primary physical custody of their five-year-old son Homer. Heche is allowed to visit Homer on alternate weekends.
July 10th, 2007
By Ravi Khandelwal
There are any numbers of small-scale industries in Punjab which rely completely on local artisans to create objects of finesse. The furniture industry in Kartarpur is one such, attracting NRI Punjabis by the droves.
Generations of Muslim carvers, hailing from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur District, have perfected this traditional craft in Kartarpur, and passing it on Sikhs in the hope of keeping the decades-old tradition of manufacturing intricate furniture alive.
The furniture has Mehrab, jail and grapevine motifs.
Right from the Vishwakarma Market to the main road connecting Jalandhar, Kartarpur has a dozen swanky showrooms, catering to local and foreign markets.
Mohinder Pal Singh, a furniture manufacturer and exporter said: The foreign customers like the carving on the wood. They prefer sofas and double-beds with intricate designs on it. Indian customers prefer Chinese furniture with simple and flat surfaces. NRI customers demand good quality furniture.”
Be it a chair, a bed, a sofa or a dining table, the furniture is made of pure sheesham teakwood, and Kartarpur furniture’s unique selling point is its durability.
“Whenever they visit Punjab, I bring them for shopping. Many a time, Kartarpur’s furniture is exported to England. Now-a-days, wrought iron furniture has taken over. People buy it, but it’s not durable. We always prefer sheesham furniture,” Mohinder said. (ANI)
July 10th, 2007
Distinctive style, features appeal to growing niche
By Anne D’Innocenzio
NEW YORK — When Jennifer Selby Long relocated from an office with leased furniture to an unfurnished one in February, her decorating problems began.
After shopping at different stores, all that the 43-year-old San Francisco resident could find was furniture made with a “5-feet-10-inch man in mind.” Long, who is 5-feet-6, ended up doing a lot of improvising, buying bookcases from Crate & Barrel and inheriting a reddish gold wood desk from the last office tenant.
“Everything is too masculine, edgy, too modern, and heavy on the metal,” said Long, who runs a management consulting business.
With small businesses owned by women growing almost twice as fast as all small business nationwide, retailers — from Swedish furniture store Ikea to OfficeMax — are just starting to wake up to the demands of female entrepreneurs like Long. These include office chairs and desks scaled to women’s smaller frames, as well as furniture that has more storage to hold purses and other personal items — a top priority for women.
While women’s design preferences can’t be lumped together, experts say they have definite tastes and, unlike their male counterparts, look at their furniture as an extension of their image.
“Women really want to personalize their space. Men are looking for more functionality,” said Kim Roffey, a strategist at Kurt Salmon Associates. When men buy an office chair, they focus on whether it rolls under the desk and provides good back support, Roffey said. Women look at those factors, but at the top of their mind is how it fits with the look of the room, she said.
Office Depot, the nation’s second-largest office supplies retailer, is considered the pioneer in staking out the female entrepreneur market. It teamed up in 2003 with decorating guru Christopher Lowell to create items such as whitewash executive desks evoking beach-house decor and hutches with antique finishes. Earlier this year, it introduced decorative shelving.
Rival OfficeMax recently struck exclusive partnerships with Sharper Image to make a line of modern office furniture and Broyhill Furniture Industries to create a traditional furniture line with details such as antique pewter ring hardware. Sharper Image designs just hit the stores, and the Broyhill collection includes writing desks priced at $399.99 and small hutches retailing for $199.99.
Meanwhile, Ikea has created decor displays aimed at female entrepreneurs, such as a bookstore and hair salon, at its 29 U.S. stores. Ikea, which operates its U.S. headquarters in suburban Conshohocken, Pa., plans to eventually expand the program overseas.
“I think we have just scratched the surface. This is one of our growth engines of the future,” said Pernille Lopez, president of Ikea North America. Lopez expects that small-business owners, particularly females, could eventually account for 10 percent to 15 percent of Ikea’s U.S. business.
Lopez wants Ikea to be a source of networking for women, who make up about 70 percent of its customers. Ikea launched an informational Web site called business.ikea.com where entrepreneurs can share design ideas and discuss topics such as handling finances. It’s also holding events at its stores featuring topics from decorating tips to human resource issues.
Store executives are staking out a booming market. According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, a nonprofit organization that focuses on the estimated 10.4 million businesses owned by women, the number of privately held firms where women owned at least a 51 percent stake grew 42.3 percent from 1997 to 2006. That’s almost twice the 23.8 percent growth for all private businesses during that same time period. The figures are projections based on 2002 Census Bureau data.
“The products (women) use, the desk they sit at represents what their brand stands for,” said Ryan Vero, executive vice president of merchandising at OfficeMax. Women account for the majority of the small-business owners who make up half of the company’s customers.
OfficeMax worked with female focus groups to get input on the new furniture lines’ design. A Broyhill credenza, for example, offers more storage than the average computer/printer stand.
OfficeMax found that based on consumer research, women had more interest in the Sharper Image brand than men. The entire Sharper Image collection for OfficeMax retails for $600, Vero said.
Vero noted that some of OfficeMax’s work with its manufacturing partners involved re-education. In the case of an office chair, it had to convince manufacturers that bulkier doesn’t necessarily mean better quality. The end result was a sleeker chair style with seat-height adjustments that fits women.
As for the Christopher Lowell line for Office Depot, the designer is already on the next trend: Furniture set on wheels that morphs into laptop stations. It will include tables that sit behind the back of sofas, wardrobe pieces and credenzas that flip into home office stations that feature retractable cords and storage.
“Even though women have dedicated home offices, they just don’t want to be stuck in their offices,” Lowell said.
July 10th, 2007
IUKA — Max Home, LLC, is locating a new custom upholstered furniture operation in Tishomingo County. The new operation will be located in a 96,000-square-foot industrial building in the Iuka Industrial Park.
The company will initially create 50 new jobs with 150 expected within 12 months.
Max Home COO Bruno Policicchio said, “Iuka was attractive to us because of the skilled labor force and because we knew the local leadership is supportive of business and industry. We are excited about our newest operation and we expect to be a good citizen of the business community in Tishomingo County for years to come, and are pleased to announce that Jimmy Gearren will be the general manager of our Iuka facility.”
The company is scheduled to begin setting up operations in the Iuka building this month.
July 10th, 2007
Previous Posts