Posts Tagged ‘hardwood furniture nc’

Ashley Furniture restructures sales divisions

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Ashley Furniture Inds. has restructured its sales divisions and sales management with a goal of boosting efficiencies and eliminating redundancies, according to company CEO Todd Wanek.

The new divisional structure, which takes effect Jan. 1, will be segmented into three product categories: stationary upholstery, motion upholstery and case goods.

As part of the move, Ashley will engage its independent marketing specialists to be dedicated to each division in order to ensure that the sales organization continues to offer a superior level of product knowledge, product training and assistance to retail customers in areas including advertising and marketing.

Each division will handle products under the Ashley, Millennium and Signature Design by Ashley brands.

The Case Goods Division will represent products including bedroom, dining room and top-of-bed goods.

The Motion Upholstery Division “will key in on the family’s casual living area, and will also include both fabric and leather motion, lift-top and caster occasional tables, home office and walls and entertainment centers,” Wanek said.

The Stationary Upholstery Division will include fabric and leather stationary upholstery, lamps, rugs, throws, decorative pillows, tabletop accessories and occasional tables.

Wanek said that until earlier this month, the company had depended on three divisional sales vice presidents with each responsible for a product brand – Ashley, Millennium or Signature Design by Ashley. Often, these divisions would work with the same accounts in representing their respective brands.

However, as of Dec. 1, the vice presidents have been regionally focused. The vice presidents continue to report to Kerry Lebensburger, Ashley’s president of sales.

“Simply put, prior to this refocus, each of the divisions would often call on the same accounts,” explained Ashley Chairman Ron Wanek.

“There were also some instances where the products overlapped each other,” he said. “As part of our ongoing commitment to be as efficient as possible, we made these changes in order to serve our dealers at the highest level.”

Source: www.furnituretoday.com

www.HowardsFurnitureandDecoratingCenter.com

Simmons, Serta debt will top $1B even after trim

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

The soon-to-be parent company of bedding majors Simmons and Serta will have more than $1 billion in long-term debt once Simmons emerges from bankruptcy protection, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court here.

Simmons currently has about $1 billion of debt of its own, but more than half will be wiped out under the proposed bankruptcy reorganization.

The documents say Simmons and Serta will be operated as separate entities. However, several key financial measures are combined because the new parent, an affiliate of Serta owners Ares Capital and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund, is projecting significant cost savings from the new ownership structure.

The documents were filed as part of Simmons’ prepackaged Chapter 11 reorganization in anticipation of Simmons being acquired by Serta’s owners.

A footnote to the statement projects Simmons’ sales in 2010 at $950 million to $960 million. A separate document projects Serta Holding’s 2010 sales at $797 million. That would put the combined companies’ sales at $1.75 billion to $1.76 billion next year — an increase of 5.8% to 6.4% from 2009.

As a standalone company, Simmons sales are projected to be $903.1 million for this year, down 12.2% from 2008.

Serta Holdings’ projected sales for this year are $742.3 million, down 8.6% from 2008. Serta Holdings generates more than 80% of the sales of the Serta brand nationally.

The financial projections, which assume the acquisition will be closed on March 15, show the two companies with approximately $1.048 billion in long-term debt on that date. Of that total, Serta’s debt is projected at $599.6 million and Simmons is forecast at $448 million.

The court documents show Serta had $624.4 million in debt as of Sept. 30, and project that figure will fall to $613.5 million by the end of this year.

According to the projections, debt for the new parent company would fall to $1.005 billion by the end of 2010. From there, it would fall steadily to $815.8 million by the end of 2013.

During that same period, the parent company’s cash position would rise steadily from $182 million at the end of 2010 to $443.4 million by the end of 2013, the projections show.

Source: www.furnituretoday.com

www.HowardsFurnitureandDecoratingCenter.com

3D Visualization Technology Helps Diverse Range of Businesses Innovate

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

New subsidiary of Artist Rendering, Inc. puts 3D technology to pioneering use for broad spectrum of industries, not just for engineers and architects anymore

Since 2002, Artist Rendering, Inc. has worked with real-estate developers and architects in visualizing their future projects through high-impact 3D renderings and animations. In the course of his work there, founder and President Alex Tiller discovered that there was a need for his company’s services across a broader spectrum. “Professionals from all sorts of industries kept coming to us and saying, ‘We like what you’re doing; can you apply it to our industry?’,” says Tiller.

Tiller rose to the challenge by creating IDEAVIZ as a subsidiary of Artist Rendering, Inc-expanding the market for his company’s technologies. A remarkable variety of local and national companies have taken advantage of the firm’s creative services-including furniture manufactures, pet-product designers, and event producers. The common thread across all these industries is their need to quickly and inexpensively explore and test new concepts, innovations and business solutions. IDEAVIZ uses virtual reality to do just that.

Using 3D visualization technology, says Tiller, “is powerful because we’re not limited by the bounds of physics. By building an object in virtual space, we can see how it will work inside and out before it’s produced in the real world.” This allows IDEAVIZ to “experiment with any idea without the expense and time required by actually building it.” This experimentation gives businesses the flexibility to make changes and explore multiple possibilities for any product concept or business process prior to implementation.

IDEAVIZ uses 3D technology to help companies look at their businesses in a new way. When creating a new product or concept, businesses face the challenge of getting their idea across to clients quickly and clearly. “It’s hard to tell what something’s really going to look like and how it will work just by looking at technical drawings,” says Tiller. “We can create a photo-real 3D visualization that lets people actually see their ideas brought to life before they even exist in the physical world.” This not only removes doubt for investors, but also allows companies to mitigate the risk of innovation by testing ideas in focus groups before investing.

IDEAVIZ plans to continue finding new applications for the powerful technology and stellar creative talent it houses. The way Tiller sees it, “the capabilities of our blend of creative, technological and managerial talent could assist in a huge array of markets. We want to keep finding new ways to help businesses innovate through visualization.”

Source: www.send2press.com

www.HowardsFurnitureAndDecoratingCenter.com