Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
June 19,
2006 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in on June 2006
Bedding retailer Mattress Firm has been honored as a recipient of the Wells Fargo Financial Retail Services Client Award.
The annual award recognizes the financial services company’s clients for success achieved with their consumer private-label credit card program through Wells Fargo Financial Retail Services. The award is based on program participation and credit card sales volume.
Steve Stagner, Mattress Firm president and chief operating officer, said the retailer’s credit program has been very successful.
“It gives our customers the convenience and favorable financing they desire—with the reputation of Wells Fargo Financial Retail Services standing behind it—and reinforces our goal of providing the best products and services in the mattress retail market,” Stagner said.
Mattress Firm’s dual-line Visa credit program features one card wtih two distinct revolving lines of credit. One line is for purchases at Mattress Firm stores, and the other line is for Visa card purchases at any establishment accepting Visa.
Houston-based Mattress Firm, an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., is the largest specialty retailer of Sealy products. Founded in 1986, the retailers operate more than 300 stores in 32 markets.
June 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Bedding on June 2006
Six families who have been staying at Ronald McDonald Houses across the country will soon have their dreams come true, as winners of Select Comfort’s “Dream for a Family” contest.
The contest celebrates the company’s fifth anniversary as the official bed provider for Ronald McDonald House Charities. All the families selected have children who are struggling with serious or life-threatening illnesses, including congenital heart defects, leukemia, organ transplants and multiple surgeries, and have been staying at the Ronald McDonald Houses while their children undergo extensive care at nearby hospitals.
Dreams being fulfilled range from arranging for an adoption to reunite siblings, to covering the cost of dental insurance for a family that goes without, to a trip to Disneyland for one family whose father suffered a paralyzing accident and whose daughter continues to need numerous corrective surgeries. In addition to fulfilling their specified dreams, Select Comfort will replace the families’ current beds with Sleep Number beds.
“While we can’t prevent children from becoming seriously ill, we can help families gather strength from a better night’s sleep to cope with the stress of caring for a child who is struggling,” said Doug Collier, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Select Comfort. “By fulfilling the dreams of these six families, we hope to give to them what they’ve postponed while caring for their sick child.”
Since 2001, the company has donated more than 3,700 Sleep Number beds to 156 Ronald McDonald Houses in the United States.
In addition to the beds, Select Comfort, along with its employees and vendor partners, has donated more than 5,500 volunteer hours and $640,000 in contributions from employee payroll deductions, retail promotions and other fundraising activities. The total value of these goods, services and cash contributions exceeds $3.2 million.
June 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on June 2006
A recent review of The Home Depot’s stock option grant procedures by the company revealed that all stock options granted since December 2000 had an exercise price based on the market price of the company’s stock on a specified grant date on or after the approval date.
The review spanned back 10 years to 1996.
The company said that it did not find any instances where stock options were retroactively priced. During the period, stock options were awarded in a regular process under which grants are authorized at the time of scheduled meetings of the board of directors of a board committee.
In five instances prior to December 2000, the date of the meeting or resolution approving the grant was later than the date used to determine the stock option exercise price. In three of those five instances, the market price of The Home Depot stock on the award date was higher than that on the date the exercise price was determined. Based on its review, the company has concluded there is no material impact to its previously filed financial statements associated with these grants. The Home Depot estimates that the unrecorded expense over the affected period was not more than $10 million in the aggregate. As a result, the company does not intend to restate prior period financial statements.
June 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Dining Room on June 2006
Recent launches in the home office and youth categories have led design and import company SLF to expand its High Point showroom at 220 S. Elm St. to almost 50,000 square feet.
Before April market, the company had been focused on bedroom and dining.
“The positive response from customers to our new collections prompted us to secure an additional 18,000 square feet of new showroom space, which will allow us to accommodate future expansions in these two groups,” said George Revington, chief executive officer of Phoenix-based SLF.
In addition to the showroom expansion, state-of-the-art office space will be designed for the management and staff who will be responsible for growing these new categories.
“We have assembled a highly experienced team to lead these new divisions and it made sense to base them in High Point,” Revington said.
Revington said retailers should continue to expect to see new product categories from SLF in the near future, and that the company’s nimble and low-cost business model allows quick entry into other product categories.
The showroom expansion will be completed in time for the fall 2006 furniture market.
June 18,
2006 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in on June 2006
High Point, N.C.-based retailer Wood-Armfield will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week in preparation for liquidating the business. The company closed its doors earlier this month, and in March, had liquidated its Utility Craft showroom, also in High Point.
Bankruptcy counsel has been hired to assist with the filing, according to a message left at the retailer’s telephone number. The company also hopes to retain a sales consultant to fill existing orders.
Wood-Armfield had hoped to sell its 135,000-plus-square-foot downtown storefront and relocate to a new building to be constructed on a parcel it owned on Interstate Business 85 in High Point near that area’s so-called “Furniture Row,” a concentration of large furniture retail operations. All that property will be sold as well as part of the liquidation.