American Leather Acquires John Charles Designs

October 19, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Leather Upholstery on October 2008 Leather furniture manufacturer American Leather, the Dallas-based design leader and leather furniture manufacturer, announced on Friday the asset acquisition of upholstery manufacturer, John Charles Designs. Under the terms of this agreement, American Leather will purchase the rights to John Charles’ home furnishing designs, textile collection and marketing materials.

According to Bob Duncan, CEO of American Leather, the acquisition will forward American Leather’s launch into the fabric category, and will immediately expand its home furnishings offerings to customers.

“John Charles Designs is an outstanding company with an impeccable reputation in the industry,” said Duncan. “The company’s 31-year heritage of beautiful design matched with world-class textiles will positively impact American Leather’s offerings to end consumers while helping us become an immediately recognizable player in fabric upholstery. We are honored that John and Nancy Genova are trusting American Leather to carry on this proud heritage.”

At the October High Point Market, which began Monday, the John Charles collection will be shown in the American Leather showroom in 5000 Showplace and will be available to customers through American Leather. The premier collection will include a wide breadth of styles, all available in hundreds of fabric options, Ultrasuede, leather, as well as COM. The collection will continue to expand into 2009. American Leather will begin accepting orders during the October market.

John Charles production will be moved into American Leather’s Dallas facility, with shipments beginning in February 2009.

“This represents the next step of our long-term strategy to expand into the fabric upholstery segment. Between our hospitality division, and our residential, and private label programs, fabric upholstery already represents approximately 30 percent of our volume,” added Duncan.

“We have state-of-the-art fabric cutting systems that allow us to handle stripe match, bow and skew, and all the other complexities associated with fabric upholstery. This is a critical core competence that we have carefully developed over the last five years, and we are excited to now expand this capability and become a full fabric upholstery resource. And just like our leather offerings, all of our fabric upholstery will be shipped in three weeks or less, which we feel puts us in a completely unique place in the upholstery market.”

According to Bruce Birnbach, president of American Leather, Nancy Genova, co-owner and lead designer of John Charles Designs will continue to lend her expertise as a designer for new collections in the coming year.

“This acquisition is really a marriage of exceptional design with manufacturing excellence – allowing us to offer this one-of-a-kind collection to consumers with the speed, quality and reliability they have come to know with American Leather,” said Birnbach.

John Genova Sr., co-owner and founder of John Charles Designs, marks the transaction as a turning point for both companies.

“John Charles Designs has always enjoyed an excellent reputation in the market, due to our emphasis on clean, forward-thinking design, quality performance and solid relationships with our retailers,” said Genova. “Now joining with American Leather’s custom-design manufacturing capabilities, coupled with emphasis on innovation, the John Charles collection can reach even broader audiences with the speed-to-market and quality that has been a key component of the American Leather brand.”

Both John Genova Sr. and John Genova Jr. will continue to work with American Leather on a consulting basis throughout 2009 to insure a smooth transition of the John Charles product line.