Hooker Furniture closing frame plant

Would like to sell 23-employee operation

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, July 17, 2009

WOODLEAF, N.C. — Hooker Furniture plans to close its Bradington-Young frame-making factory here by the end of the year and shift operations to its frame facility in Cherryville, N.C., the company said in a form 8-K filed with the Securities Exchange Commission.

Hooker officials told the plant's 23 employees that the company would like to sell the operation as an ongoing business, but would close it if a buyer wasn't found. The 34,000-square-foot facility is under lease until December.

The consolidation is required because of declining demand for domestic upholstery, the company said in the filing. It said that moving production to Cherryville will reduce fixed overhead costs by about $350,000 to $550,000 annually, or two to three cents per share, after the transition is completed.