Special Order
I\'m Larry Thomas, business editor of Furniture/Today. In my 17 years here, I\'ve written stories about everything from box springs to wicker chairs. For 12 years, I wrote the weekly \"Bedding Today\" column, which is now in the capable hands of executive editor David Perry. Since being named business editor in 2001, most of my stories have dealt with home entertainment furniture, recliners, financial news and furniture markets. I look forward to discussing key industry issues in this forum, and I welcome your thoughts and opinions.
A surprising twist to a controversial trucking program
The long-running battle over the controversial “clean truck” program at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach took a surprising turn recently when the Long Beach port reached an out-of-court settlement on a lawsuit filed last year by the American Trucking Assn. According to a story in the Journal of Commerce, the Long Beach port said it would not require trucking companies using th ...... Read More
Comments (0)Furniture can make you laugh -- no joke
Ordinarily, furniture is not a humorous product, but I’ve stumbled across several recent news items that mentioned furniture and brought a smile to my face at the same time. That’s never an easy task, and has been an especially difficult one during the past year or so. The most recent furniture funny was uncovered in an excerpt from tennis great Andre Agassi’s autobiography t ...... Read More
Comments (1)Wanek, Buffett sustain Forbes 400 losses
The long-running furniture industry slump has claimed another victim: Ron Wanek. The chairman of Ashley Furniture has dropped off the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Forbes 400 list. Wanek was No. 321 on the 2008 list with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion, but his name appears only in a list headlined “Dropouts” in the magazine’s Oct. 19 issue. No e ...... Read More
Comments (7)Wickline bankruptcy serves double dose of sadness
It’s never fun to write a story about a retailer or manufacturer filing for bankruptcy, but I was particularly saddened to write about Wickline Bedding, a family-owned independent mattress producer near San Diego that recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. When I was Furniture/Today’s bedding editor from 1990 to 2001, I always looked forward to chatting with principal o ...... Read More
Comments (1)No tears needed for Simmons owner
Don’t feel sorry for T.H. Lee, the private equity firm that has been the majority owner of Simmons since 2003. On the surface, it looks like the firm stands to lose a boatload of money by agreeing to sell the bedding producer to affiliates of Ares Management and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan for about $760 million. After all, an investor group led by Lee paid $1.1 billion for the compan ...... Read More
Comments (3)Recession not over for consumer electronics, either
Although there were a handful of optimistic reports about business conditions coming out of the Las Vegas Market and High Point premarket, suffice it to say that nobody in the home furnishings industry is celebrating the end of the recession just yet. But clearly, we’re not alone. Even the consumer electronics business, with all of its high definition TVs and other cool gadgets, is feeling ...... Read More
Comments (0)Let's give these "outsiders" a chance
The story about Sealy’s hiring of former Whirlpool executive Jodi Allen had only been available on our Web site for about an hour Thursday when a reader slammed the company for hiring her. Describing Allen as “someone from outside the industry to screw things up,” the reader concluded that the poor track record of previous executives with no furniture or bedding industry exper ...... Read More
Comments (3)All shareholders could lose in recount battle
In an unusual move last week, shareholders of airbed manufacturer and retailer Select Comfort narrowly rejected a deal that would have given controlling interest to the private the equity firm of Sterling Partners for $35 million. Or did they? Select Comfort, which said a few hours after voting ended that the results had been certified by the consulting firm Broadridge Financial Solutions, now say ...... Read More
Comments (0)McIngvale still pursuing thoroughbred dream race
Since I’m the only horse racing fan on the Furniture/Today editorial staff, I have been assigned to follow Gallery Furniture owner Jim McIngvale’s effort to arrange a race between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta, two females who, in my humble opinion, are the best horses in the country right now. McIngvale, a longtime thoroughbred owner himself, initially proposed a $2 million match ra ...... Read More
Comments (4)Suit against former Spring Air owner resurfaces
American Capital Strategies, which owned the “old” Spring Air brand, probably was hoping to rid itself of a class action lawsuit filed by former workers when it went to bankruptcy court on May 29. But the suit, which seeks 60 days wages and retirement benefits for some 700 workers who were suddenly dismissed earlier that month, has resurfaced in the form of an adversarial proceeding ...... Read More
Comments (4)China spending billions on bullet trains
As many readers know, travel to China can be challenging. And travel within the huge country can be a nightmare, given the language barrier, the traffic-choked highways, and the like. But a recent article I stumbled across in Fortune magazine provided hope that travel between major Chinese cities will be a bit easier in the next few years. The reason: a $300 billion, 16,000-mile high-speed rail ne ...... Read More
Comments (5)Tax Incentives Could Stimulate Furniture Buying
During a recent trip to visit family and friends in my home state of Indiana, I was often asked how the furniture industry is faring during the recession. My stock answer was “about as well as the auto industry.” It was an analogy people in and around my hometown could understand, because the area has been devastated by the closings of numerous factories that produced auto parts. Tha ...... Read More
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