Heath E. Combs — Furniture Today,
\nHIGH POINT \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Bernards executive vice presidents David Ward and Jeff Friedman
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\n have purchased the dinette, occasional and daybed importer from majority stock owner and President Robert Metzger.
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\nWard is now president and Friedman is CEO, and the two are equal partners in the company. Tom Black remains vice president of sales.
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\nA purchase price was not disclosed.<\/p>\n
Herman Bernard founded Bernards as an import company in 1983 after he sold his interest in High Point-based television cabinet resource Case-Casard, Ward said.<\/p>\n
Experiencing health problems, Bernard sought a buyer for the company in 1994. It was sold to Massachusetts investor Robert Metzger, who in turn sold 6% interests each to Ward and Friedman.<\/p>\n
Ward, a former Klaussner sales rep, joined the company in 1990 as sales manager. Friedman, who owned a stake in U.S. Furniture Inds. and was a grandson of that company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s founder, Stanley Taylor, joined Bernards a year later to handle product development and overseas sourcing.<\/p>\n
Metzger initially bought the company as an investment, Ward said. He said he and Friedman began talking to him about buying the company earlier this year.<\/p>\n
All management and employees will stay the same, Ward said, adding that other than new ownership, nothing is changing at the company.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had is a long history with a very loyal background. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had customers since the day we opened our doors and still have them today,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n
The company sources about 90% of its product from Vietnam, China and Malaysia, and some furniture from Brazil.<\/p>\n
Bernards sells to more than 2,500 retailers, with its largest accounts in the Southeast. Top customers include W.S. Badcock, Kimbrells, Farmers, Schewels, Grand Home Furnishings, Kanes and Nebraska Furniture Mart.<\/p>\n
At market, the company shows in the International Home Furnishings Center, M-230.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heath E. Combs — Furniture Today, HIGH POINT \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Bernards executive vice presidents David Ward and Jeff Friedman<\/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-2294","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\/2294","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=2294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indonesia-furniture.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}