Daily News Archive
Brought to you by Home Furnishings Business
January 27,
2011 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Executive Changes on January 28, 2011
As part of
Furniture Brands continuing emphasis on marketing, Mindi Brothers has joined the company as director of marketing for
Broyhill.
Brothers, who joined FBN in 2010 in a retail marketing capacity, has expanded to lead the Broyhill marketing effort. Brothers who most recently was a vice president at
Maritz, a performance improvement company, has successfully grown such brands as
Aunt Jemima,
Duncan Hines and
Purina.
"We continue to bring new marketers to our brands to invigorate and energize our commitment to growing our brands," said Jim Brenner, Furniture Brands CMO. "Bringing in professionals from other industries helps us bring excitement and best practices. To balance and complete our marketing team, we have a great group of marketers who have grown up in the furniture business. This helps us bring the best of the past and innovation for the future to all of our marketing."
January 27,
2011 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Financial Reports on January 28, 2011
Costco Wholesale Corp.
(NASDAQ: COST) has declared a quarterly cash dividend on its common stock.
The dividend of $.205 per share is payable Feb. 25, to shareholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 11.
Costco currently operates 582 warehouses, including 425 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 80 in Canada, 22 in the United Kingdom, seven in Korea, six in Taiwan, nine in Japan, one in Australia and 32 in Mexico. The Company also operates Costco Online.
The full release can be found online.
January 27,
2011 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Financial Reports on January 28, 2011
Ethan Allen Interiors (NYSE:ETH) has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share payable to shareholders of record as of April 8 and will be paid on April 25.
"We are pleased that our financial results and our business stability provide us the opportunity to continue to award dividends to our shareholders," said Farooq Kathwari, chairman and CEO.
Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. is an interior design company and manufacturer and retailer of home furnishings. The company has a network of 280 design centers throughout the United States and abroad and sells its products online. Ethan Allen owns and operates seven manufacturing facilities in North America, including five manufacturing plants and one sawmill in the United States and one manufacturing plant in Mexico.
The complete release can be read online.
January 27,
2011 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in economic news on January 28, 2011
New orders from furniture retailers fell 5 percent in November 2010 compared to the same month the prior year, according to the latest Furniture Insights survey.
High Point accounting and consulting firm Smith Leonard conducts the monthly survey of residential furniture manufacturers and distributors.
New orders were up 3 percent from October 2010. Year-to-date, new orders were up 4 percent for the eleven months, down from a 5 percent increase through October. Smith Leonard Managing Partner Ken Smith noted that new orders in November 2009 were 10 percent higher than November 2008, and that the third consecutive year-to-year monthly decline in orders was not unexpected.
"As we noted last month, based on our conversations, the fourth quarter of 2010 clearly slowed from the momentum that was built in late 2009 and early 2010," he said.
Shipments in November were flat compared with November 2009 and up 1 percent over October. Shipments in November 2009 were down 1 percent compared to November 2008. Year-to-date, shipments were up 7 percent for the eleven months over the same period a year ago. The first eleven months of 2009 were down 17 percent from the same period in 2008. For the year-to-date, shipments were up for 79 percent of the participants, up slightly from last month.
With orders exceeding shipments for the month, backlogs increased slightly, up 3 percent. Backlogs are now 2 percent lower than they were in November 2009.
Receivable levels rose 6 percent over November 2009, more in line with the year-to-date shipment levels, though still a bit high relative to the last two month's shipments comparisons.
"But they were 9 percent higher in October versus October 2009, so the trend is moving in the right direction," Smith said.
Inventories were 18 percent higher than November a year ago, down slightly from a 19 percent increase reported last month. Inventories were down 3 percent from October, an indication vendors are getting inventories in line with current business conditions.
Factory and warehouse employment fell 1 percent from November 2009 and 1 percent lower than the prior month as vendors adjusted to slower fourth-quarter business.
"November 2009 orders were up 10 percent over 2008 so we were going up against pretty strong results from last year," Smith said in summary. "Nevertheless, it does seem that the fourth quarter seemed to stall some of the momentum we had gained earlier in the year. "
Smith noted the recent decline in orders would negatively affect first-quarter 2011 shipments, but that both orders and shipments for the 11 months were on the positive side after three years of declining orders and shipments (with 2008 and 2009 reporting double digit declines).
Despite continued high unemployment, Smith said positives include improving consumer confidence spurred by significant improvement in the stock market, a sense that government spending will get under control, stabilizing unemployment and real improvement in the economy, if not in furniture sales.
"When some of this improvement in confidence converts to more furniture sales, we are not sure," Smith said. "But we do expect 2011 to be a more kinder and gentler year than the last four years have been."
January 26,
2011 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Financial Reports on January 27, 2011
Bassett Furniture Inds. (NASDAQ: BSET) announced the potential sale of High Point's International Home Furnishings Center along with an 11 percent fourth-quarter 2010 sales increase.
Bassett is engaged in negotiations for the sale of its 46.9 percent interest in the IHFC and said no definitive agreement for the sale has been reached. Any such sale would be made only as part of the simultaneous sale of 100 percent of the ownership interests in IHFC to the prospective purchaser. The Bassett, Va.-based company is one of four shareholders of IHFC.
"The proposed sale of IHFC offers us the opportunity to unlock value in a key non-core asset that we believe is not currently fully recognized in the Company's stock price as well as to significantly strengthen our already strong balance sheet," said Bassett President and CEO Rob Spilman. "Although there can be no assurance that an agreement among all of the required parties will be reached, we hope to complete the sale by the end of February."
In the fourth quarter, which ended Nov. 28, sales of $66 million rose 11 percent from the prior-year period's $59.5 million. The company reported net income of $1.9 million, or $0.17 per share, for the fourth quarter, compared with $2.6 million, or $0.22 per share, for fourth-quarter 2009.
"We are pleased to report an 11% sales increase for the fourth quarter of 2010," said Spilman said. "While we do not believe that the overall pace of sales has improved significantly on an industry-wide basis, we are making progress on several fronts to grow our top line. This includes slight improvements in sales in our Company-owned retail fleet, the addition of new accounts outside our store network, and improved service levels on our imported products by virtue of our strategy to carry higher levels of inventory on our key items. The profit that we generated during the quarter resulted from a higher level of sales enhanced by an expense structure that has been aggressively trimmed for several quarters. We are very focused on doing everything that we can to generate future growth while continuing to monitor our operating expenses."
As of Nov. 27 Bassett's Bassett Furniture Direct store network included 54 licensee-owned stores and 47 Company-owned and operated stores. During the quarter, the company acquired certain assets of, and now operates one additional licensee store, while another store acquired during the first quarter of 2010 was closed at the end of the fourth quarter.
Company-owned stores had sales of $34.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2010 as compared to $27.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, an increase of 26.6 percent.