Clint Engel — Furniture Today,
\nFORT WORTH, Texas \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Marvin Girouard, chairman and CEO and 32-year veteran of Pier 1 Imports, will retire from the company Feb. 28.
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\nPier 1\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board has hired New York-based retail executive search firm Herbert Mines Associates to help choose a new CEO.<\/p>\n
Girouard, 67, CEO for eight years and chairman for seven, has led the specialty retailer on an aggressive growth strategy that included branching into youth home furnishings through its Pier 1 Kids division. But more recently, the company has felt pressure from Wall Street \u00e2\u20ac\u201d stymied by a series of same-store sales declines, net losses and some television and merchandising shifts that Girouard and others admit have not connected with consumers.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I feel that it is time for me to leave in the course of a normal retirement and allow new leadership to emerge and flourish,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Girouard said.<\/p>\n
Asked if the plan to step down is tied to a recent announcement that the chain is in talks with Iceland-based retailer Lagerinn ehf about a possible sale, Girouard said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not really,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d other than that it defines Pier 1\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future management picture for Lagerinn should it pursue Pier 1 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to the point of purchase.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In an interview today, Girouard said he has been looking at retirement for the past year or so and is grateful the board allowed him to choose the timing. He plans to stay involved on various corporate boards and in charity work. Other than that, he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll take a few months \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and figure out where I want to put my energy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
When he started with the retailer in the mid 1970s, Pier was doing about $40 million in sales at about 80 stores. Today, the company has more than 1,200 stores doing nearly $2 billion.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Pier 1 Executive Committee members Jim Hoak and Tom Thomas thanked Girouard for his contributions and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our goal is for a smooth transition that can allow our associates to keep their focus on serving our customers and building shareholder value.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In addition to leading Pier 1 through good and bad times, Girouard was instrumental in the retailer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early move into importing from China, an accomplishment of which he is proud. With Girouard leading merchandising at the time, Pier 1 started working China in 1976 and became one the biggest buyers of Chinese handicrafts and metal and wood home furnishings.<\/p>\n
In the years leading into 2001 and then following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as consumers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 cocooning instinct kicked in, Pier was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153golden,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Girouard noted. In a six-year period it opened abut 500 stores. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That kind of exposed us to the world,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Girouard said, adding that Pier 1\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s success caught the attention of Target and others who moved quickly to match Pier 1 and take a piece of the pie.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That changed the landscape and demanded that we change,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, but he added that some of those changes have misfired. Most recently, the retailer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s assortment became too contemporary for the tastes of its consumer base, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shifting back.<\/p>\n
Pier 1 has posted five consecutive quarters of net losses, most recently a fiscal second quarter loss of $73.1 million that included one-time charges and an accounting change.<\/p>\n
A big country western music fan, Girouard said he is reminded of the Merle Haggard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s song, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Someday when Things Are Good (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna leave you. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to go when things are bad).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Would I like to go when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having 20% sales gains? You bet,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. But he added he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be working hard over his last five months to bring the company back to better times, as Pier 1 continues to adjust its recipe for driving traffic back to its stores.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My mantra is you can fault me for doing wrong, but you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fault me for doing nothing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clint Engel — Furniture Today, FORT WORTH, Texas \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Marvin Girouard, chairman and CEO and 32-year veteran of Pier 1 Imports, will retire from the company Feb. 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-furniture-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}