LifeStyle will linger to sell other assets
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, February 10, 2002
High Point — After reaching agreements to sell its Lexington Home Brands and Robert Allen Group divisions, LifeStyle Furnishings International is on the verge of ceasing to exist as an operating company.
LFI will continue to function as a financial entity as it winds up business related to the divestiture of its operating divisions, a process that could take as long as a year, said Alan Cole, chief executive officer.
"The corporation still has obligations relative to some real estate not part of the transactions and some offshore facilities," Cole said. "There's a lot of corporate activity that has to continue for some time."
LifeStyle has fewer than 40 people on staff, and that number will shrink as the company closes out the sale of its divisions. In coming months, LFI will move out of its headquarters building here and into smaller offices.
Cole said the company's divestiture strategy changed last year in the face of events inside and outside the industry.
"The original concept was to reduce the size of the company so we had strategic commonality among the operating divisions," he said. That was a move to concentrate LifeStyle's case goods efforts toward higher-end goods — which led to the June agreement to sell Universal to Lacquercraft.
A tough year for the industry, coupled with the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks, however, convinced LFI to sell the remaining divisions as well.
That approach led to subsequent deals, including the sale of Drexel Heritage, Henredon and Maitland-Smith to Furniture Brands International in December.
"When the FBI opportunity came up, it made us realize that this was the best thing for the divisions' ability do what they do best," Cole said.
LifeStyle realized it was not offering a strategic benefit as a parent company, he said.
"With where the industry is going, if you're going to be a large company you can't sacrifice responsiveness and strategic unity for the sake of being big," he said. "While we were large, we didn't have that one strategy that worked for all our divisions."
Cole added that he wasn't sure about his own future, post-LifeStyle.
"That's yet to be determined, and I'd rather not speculate, but you can be sure I will be very active in home furnishings because it's what I know and what I love," he said.
Fabric Editor Susan M. Andrews contributed to this story.
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