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Picket & Rail heads to America

By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, January 11, 2010

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Picket & Rail, a Singapore-based producer and retailer of case goods and upholstery, has hired case goods veteran Eduardo Herscovitz to help it enter the U.S. market.

Herscovitz joined the company in November as executive vice president of its Americas operation. He is based in southern California, where the company is setting up a sales, marketing and customer service office and a small warehouse.

Herscovitz most recently was a consultant for International Enterprise Singapore, an economic development agency. Before that, he was an executive at casual dining specialist Accentage Furniture and earlier worked with American Dream Rooms, International Furniture USA and Brazil Furniture Group.

He met Picket & Rail Chairman Syed Faisal Alsagoff in August during a visit to the Salao Abimovel show in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Picket & Rail officials were looking to expand their business to South America. The company began its export business in 1991 and today primarily serves Europe and the Middle East.

Alsagoff and company CEO Ng Boon Long said they chose Herscovitz based on his years of industry experience and his knowledge of the U.S. market.

“He also had experiences working with Asians. Despite a very globalized world economy, major differences in business practices between Americans and Asians are still very prevalent,” said Alsagoff.

Given the economic shakeup in the global economy, both he and Herscovitz said the time is right for Picket & Rail to enter the U.S. market.

“People are learning how to do the business with new suppliers and new product at competitive prices,” Herscovitz said.

“Everything is changing very fast, and I think 2010 will be a year of opportunity that would not have happened if this (economic) crisis had not happened.”

Picket & Rail has ownership stakes in two plants in China, a metal factory in Guangzhou that employs about 270 and a barstool and sofa factory in Hangzhou with about 250 workers. It also has a case goods factory in Vietnam that employs 180. It also sources from about 15 other factories in China and Vietnam.

These operations supply the company's export business and its six stores in Singapore with a mix of bedroom, dining room, home office and upholstered furniture.

The company employs about 35 in its Guangzhou export office and 45 in a Singapore corporate office, which also helps manage the retail side of the business.

In the United States, it plans to offer promotional casual dining, bookcases and home entertainment items such as consoles and flat-panel TV stands. With five-piece casual dining sets targeted to retail from $99 to $499, it will primarily target furniture retailers and mass merchants along with Internet and catalog retailers.

Herscovitz will handle the company's North, Central and South America operation, overseeing sales and product development.

He is organizing a sales rep force that will have specialized salespeople for various retail segments. He also will work with U.S. designers who will coordinate product development efforts with three in-house designers in Guangzhou.

Picket & Rail plans to launch its product line at the September Las Vegas market. It also has showrooms in Xiamen and Guangzhou China and in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The company has a Web site at www.picketandrail.com. Herscovitz can be reached at (562) 980-6781.

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