Leather Center gone?
Chain had dwindled to 33 stores in past 15 months
By Joan Gunin -- Furniture Today, April 28, 2002
CARROLLTON, Texas — Furniture retailer-manufacturer Leather Center apparently has closed its remaining 33 stores nationwide.
Telephones rang unanswered at stores and company headquarters late last week. The Dallas Morning News reported earlier in the week that a recorded message on the Leather Center headquarters phone line said the company had no plans to reopen.
The company's Web site also was shut down. There were no reports of a bankruptcy filing, however.
The 20-year-old, custom- order leather specialist grew fast in the 1990s but had struggled for more than a year. It had 108 stores at the end of its fiscal year on Feb. 28, 2001, but closed most of them in the past 15 months.
The privately held company reported retail sales of furniture, bedding and decorative accessories of $69.1 million in the year ended in February 2001, and ranked 75th on the Furniture/ Today Top 100 U.S. furniture stores list based on that volume.
Its manufacturing division, Georgio Leoni, withdrew from the High Point market in 1999.
Dave Carpenter, director of credit for La-Z-Boy Financial Services, said his company is owed in the "low five figures" for discontinued leather goods sold to Leather Center by various La-Z-Boy upholstery divisions.
"We stopped shipping approximately four weeks ago due to broken payment promises," he said, but added that Leather Center never was a large account.
Stefan Brunander, president of Elmo Leather, said Leather Center used to be a big account for his company but in recent years had become less significant as it shifted away from better quality hides toward more promotional leathers.
Senior Retail Editor Clint Engel contributed to this story.
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